Leonard Weber

January 20, 2024

The Rouge River flows through Eliza Howell Park, and one of my annual winter questions is when (or whether) it will freeze over.

There is always a current and it takes a sustained period of very cold weather to freeze the whole surface. I always observe at the same location, standing on the footbridge and facing upstream.

This has been a warm winter and, until quite recently, the surface was almost entirely without ice. Here are two views from earlier this month.

A cold spell began about a week ago. The last day the temperature was above 32 F  was January 13. On January 14, the high was about 19 degrees with a low of about 0.

The next day, the view had begun to change.

The ice was beginning to form near  the river edges, where the current is less strong.

The next day was even colder, with a high of about 12 and a low slightly below zero. The effect was obvious (and was made more evident by a light snowfall).

A close-up look at a section of the photo indicates how the ice surface expands, stretching out from  the sides toward the center of the river.

Based on past observations, I have come to expect that the river surface will freeze over at this location when there are several consecutive days when the temperature does not get as high as 20 degrees.

On January 16, the high was about 16 degrees.

There was no additional snow, so the ice in the center of the river is not easy to see. A closer view confirms that the ice now stretches from shore to shore.

It has remained cold and there have been a couple more small snowfalls. This is the most recent photo.

The ice is thin, and there remain spots elsewhere in the park where the river surface is not frozen. For the purpose of my year-to-year comparison, however, there has now been one Rouge River freeze this winter.

A thaw is in the forecast for the coming week and, with melted snow entering the river, the ice will likely break up quite quickly.

It remains to be seen whether this is the only river freeze this year.