Ice Shove: Giant Ice Slabs Invade Great Lakes Shorelines

By: By Jon Erdman

Published: April 16, 2014

          The photo above is not a pile of snow deposited by dump trucks or snowplows. This is an ice shove in Menominee, Mich. photographed on April 13, 2014. According to Fox 11 in Green Bay, the ice shove closed the road to the Menominee lighthouse and caused some minor property damage. Ice shoves were also reported along the western shore of Lake Winnebago in the city of Oshkosh, according to WKOW-TV.

       An ice shove is a rapid push of free-floating lake or sea ice onshore by wind. Strong winds from the same direction over, say, a 12 to 24 hour period, are enough to drive large chunks and plates of ice ashore.

The initial slabs or blocks of ice will slow down momentarily when reaching land, creating a traffic jam of ice piling behind and on top. The result is a massive ice pile often over 10 feet high, surging ashore in a matter of minutes, surrounding and damaging everything in their path, including trees, sod, fences, and homes. 

In some parts of the Great Lakes, Upper Midwest and Canada, ice shoves are common in the spring as lake ice breaks up, floats, then push ashore. April and May are considered ice shove season along Wisconsin's Lake Winnebago shore.

An impressive string of ice shoves were documented in spring 2013, including a destructive event along the southwest shore of Manitoba's Dauphin Lake on May 10, damaging 27 homes near Ochre Beach. Ice cover over the Great Lakes as of April 15 is the most widespread on record for mid-April, covering over 39 percent of the Great Lakes.

 http://www.wunderground.com/news/ice-shove-menominee-michigan-lake-winnebago-wisconsin-20140416