NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — You may have been seeing a lot of headlines on social media that say Niagara Falls is frozen, so the VERIFY team hit the road and headed up to Niagara Falls to answer one question.
Is Niagara Falls really frozen?
Our sources for this story are Dr. Stuart Evans, an assistant professor of geography and the RENEW Institute at the University at Buffalo; Keith Koralewski of the Army Corps of Engineers in Buffalo; and Angela Berti, public affairs director and a 14-year veteran of the Niagara Falls State Park staff.
We asked them directly if the falls are frozen.
“It is not,” Dr. Evans said. “You can see it flowing very, very readily.”
“The falls itself is not frozen,” Koralewski said.
“No, they’re not frozen or not frozen,” Berti said.
For most people, when they hear the word frozen, they think it’s rock solid. Is it even possible for Niagara Falls freeze to that point?
“I don’t think so,” Dr. Evans said. “I think the volume of water moving over the falls at that speed, I don’t think any sort of reasonable set of circumstances produces that.”
Koralewski says the speed of the rapids, the volume of water, and height in which water would be cresting over the falls make the idea of a frozen falls nearly impossible.
“Upstream of the falls and the upper Niagara River is moving at a fairly decent velocity,” Koralewski said. “That water cannot freeze.”
The last time Niagara Falls partially froze, according to Niagara Falls State Park officials, was 1938. A large ice jam in the upper river drastically reduced the volume of water going over the falls and allowed for more ice to build up.