Wednesday morning at 9:00am

Wednesday morning at 9:00am

Wednesday afternoon at 5:15pm

Wednesday afternoon at 5:15pm

During the day the river level dropped about six inches, which made the surface more turbulent. The snowfall yesterday was manifested as rafts of slush traveling down the river. I would guess that this will add to the mass of the ice jam, which will therefore start growing back up the river. We may yet have our very own glacier this winter.

Click on any of the photos to see the whole set of them.

Proving that not only can you never step in the same river twice, you also cannot take the same photo of a river twice, here are some updates to the ice jam and flooding at the Sixth Street Bridge dam,

Sunday, 3 February

Monday, 4 February

Monday, 4 February

Monday, 4 February

Tuesday, 5 February

Tuesday, 5 February

Tuesday, 5 February

Photos 1, 4, 5 and 6 are all pretty much the same shot. On Sunday the river was placid, ice above and below the dam, but some water flowing through. On Monday the water level had dropped a bit, and there was a small drop between the upper and lower levels. On Tuesday all of the up-river ice had let go and jammed up just below the dam, causing the water to rise to the point that, other than a few odd swirls, there was no sign of the dam at all. I have never seen the water this high. The ice was jammed higher than this three years ago, but that was everything on top of the water. Since we are supposed to get between six and nine inches of snow in the next 24 hours, plus some sleet and freezing rain, I expect the water will rise even higher, and then everything will begin to freeze. Unless something breaks the entire ice jam loose I expect we will see some city streets under water in the next few days.

I have lived in Michigan my whole life. I have seen colder winters than this one. I have seen snowier winters than this one. But I don’t remember ever feeling as beaten down by the weather as I have since the beginning of this year.

…and this is the Grand River as of 9:00am.

Looking south from the boat launch on the Sixth Street Bridge dam.

Looking west across the river at the fish ladder.

Looking north.

…so here is a picture of a duck on a picnic table in the middle of the Grand River.

The fish ladder. Right now there is no evidence that it is anything other than an odd concrete sculpture.

Miles and miles of this.

The Sixth Street bridge.

The Brassworks Building, from the fish ladder. The dam is directly underneath the power lines.

Eastbound (lower) and westbound (upper) I-196.

The Titanic.

More photos of the ice jam can be found here.

Sorry for the lack of updates; I am out of the habit of ‘blogging. When I leave work the last thing I want to do is spend more time looking at a computer; especially now, when the weather has finally turned and the monsoons are coming home to roost.

Last week Grand Rapids had a genuine mud-slide ; the first I have heard of in my fifteen years living here.

Yesterday I took a two-hour walk around Riverside Park, which was mostly under water. I have a couple of pictures up in the River Project section of es.o. They scarcely do it justice.

The water in places reached from the river to Monroe Street, a distance of over a hundred yards. Where people usually play disc-golf, a blue heron caught fish.

As I was leaving, a group of river pirates on jet boats invaded the park and snatched several children from the playground equipment.

Today the river at the 6th Street Bridge dam is so high that surface tension is almost re-asserting itself; a state which would turn the dam into “just another big rock in the river”. At the fish ladder, the water on the sidewalk is knee-deep. Even when the ice let go in March the water wasn’t so high.

Local experts say that the river could rise as much as three more feet over the next two days, which would put the water well up onto Monroe Street, and do a good job of reminding us that we live in a flood plain.