One thing that’s very obvious about the weather in recent years is how unpredictable it’s become. While there’s a general sense of what we can expect as the seasons change, it’s hard not to notice how much conditions change from week to week.
For instance, my area went from snowing bizarrely early to mild and without a snowflake in sight around Christmas time to blanketed in white shortly after. It’s definitely caused some headaches in my family, and I don’t just mean that metaphorically. Pressures changes will do that.
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But the frequency of changes in weather aren’t the only unpredictable part the present. As we can see from the heat waves in Europe last year, the chaos of the Australian bush fires that carried over into this year, and what’s been going on around the shores of Lake Erie lately, the intensity of these weather events are just as unpredictable.
If you were to visit a Lake Erie community such as Euclid Beach, Ohio or Hamburg, New York right now, this is likely what you would see.
As CNN reported , this sudden icy casing on everything can be attributed to gale force winds that blew for 48 hours late last week.
And as these winds blew, they created massive waves that kept forcing lake water up past the shore.
As The Weather Channel’s winter weather expert, Tom Niziol said , “When you are down in the low to mid-20s, all of that spray that comes up and hits the buildings is going to freeze and make it a giant icicle.”
And residents of Hamburg, New York can confirm that this is exactly what happened to their homes.
One of them, Ed Mis, reported that his house is now covered in several feet of ice and it has piled up to about 12 in his backyard.
As he told it, this ice went from not present at all on Thursday to covering everything on Friday.
And while it may be impressive to look at, it’s causing serious concerns for those who are actually experiencing it.
Not only has this sudden ice invasion blocked out sunlight from the inside of their homes, but they also fear that the weight of this ice could put harmful strain on their roofs when it melts.
From there, any number of structural problems could result.
This melting has reportedly already begun, which leaves Mis hoping the governor of New York will approve an emergency declaration to help recovery efforts.
As Mis told CNN, “It’s a beautiful sight, but I don’t want to live through it again.”
h/t: CNN
