Image: Ice Tsunamis forming, YouTube screenshot
The Great White North was pelted by 'ice tsunamis' over the weekend: walls of ice forming on the Great Lakes were pushed inland, destroying a couple dozen homes in Manitoba. No one was harmed, but 27 houses were completely crushed. Not to be insensitive to the homeless Canadians, but these tsunamis are actually pretty stunning to watch in action.
The event isn't too uncommon, and is prone to happen when strong winds kick up over large lakes after a late season cold spell. A smaller, less disastrous ice tsunami crept into Minnesota, where a resident caught the event on video. It's beautiful, in a sci-fi special effects kind of way:
Christopher Tetrault, a conservation officer for the area with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, explained to CNN what we're seing occur: "Strong winds blow heavy chunks of ice out in the lake toward the shore. Those chunks heave up bits of lighter, melting ice closer to shore up on the land. The more the wind blows, the more ice comes onto land."
Now imagine that at 30 times the height, and that's what happened in Canada. A frigid slo-mo tsunami.
I'm glad that there are still new kinds of insane, home-destroying weather phenomena out there for us to learn about/get crushed by. After the last couple of years, what with climate change-induced extreme weather events like Frankenstorms, wildfires, derechos, hurricanes, super-tornadoes, and record floods, I thought we'd seen it all. Good thing, then, these ice tsunamis came along and reminded us we still can't predict which disasters might collapse our garages next.
