CNN
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Ontario’s lakeside homes were enveloped in a thick, spiky coat of ice after last weekend’s blizzard smashed frigid waves on the coast.
Residents of the Fort Erie community, coincidentally named Crystal Beach, said waves were crashing against the Lake Erie breakwater during the storm.
“Then the water froze the back of the house, from the top to the bottom of the house,” Derek Tapling told CNN news partner CTV. Imagine rushing over it, hitting a wall, freezing instantly, freezing rapidly, it’s absolutely unbelievable.”
The community is located west of Erie County, New York, where the historic blizzard killed more than 30 people, most of them in the city of Buffalo.
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Fort Erie saw lows in the single digits on a stormy night, about 20 degrees below average for this time of year. Forecasts from the National Weather Service warned that during the peak of the storm last Friday and Saturday, winds on Lake Erie could soar to 60 mph and waves could grow to 25 feet or more. Forecasters warn that “heavy freeze spray” he could build up on the surface at a rate of about an inch per hour.
As these waves crashed onto the shore, the supercooled water quickly froze on the surface.
Tapling told CTV that the ice on Crystal Beach homes was at least a foot thick and residents were concerned about the weight of the ice.
“We’ve been here for a long time, and we’ve never seen weather this bad in that period,” Tupling said. “The damage and destruction that has been caused behind the homes where we are now is unbelievable.”
Temperatures in the Fort Erie area are expected to soar to 40 degrees on Thursday and 50 degrees on Friday, about 20 degrees above normal.
