4° and Clear
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The big storm is coming. The current estimate for Sunday is 10 to 15 inches of new snow.
The Niagara Falls Department of Public Works is ready for the storm with plenty of salt and every available driver scheduled. You can still complain about side streets being plowed. It is your right, like complaining that the Niagara Gazette sucks. (It does.) It is your right as a voter.
My answer to what some might call “bad” weather is to get out in it. Sunday morning I plan to make meatballs and put on a big pot of gravy. Then Gord and I will venture into the storm. He will wear dog paws and his sweater of curls. I will wear snowshoes. We will go down the stairs and venture to the flats above the Whirlpool. I have one extra pair of snowshoes I could loan to someone. If you have some of your own and would like to join us let me know. It will be our 4th trip of 2026.
I have hiked in worse weather in the Adirondacks and always carry the 10 essentials for hiking, especially in inclement weather.
This spate of cold weather, with wind mixed in, is guaranteed to bring spectacular ice to Goat Island and the Cave of the Winds.
The trees up top, headed toward Horseshoe Falls, get coated in ice. Everything is peaceful and beautiful until there is slight thaw with a little wind. Then they start shedding shards onto the ice crust below. It is a symphony of breaking glass. A cacophony in the graceful beauty.
Down below, on the decks, the ice adjacent to Bridal Veil and American Falls coats the jagged rocks to ever-thicker levels and forms whimsical, Seussian, amorphous blobs.
The best thing is, as cold as it is, you can walk 5 minutes from your car, buy a ticket, watch or skip 7 minutes of tired movie that needs to be redone to include Whirlpool and Devil’s Hole and then head to the elevator for a look-see.
You don’t have to stay in the cold for long but you might have to take off your glove to snap a photo.
After viewing the ice, head over to Three Sisters Island. Bring binoculars and check out the gulls. If you can pick out the tan one on the rocks with a dark bill, it is a glaucous gull, a rarity that usually overwinters in California.
The chickadees, titmice and even a downy woodpecker gather near the parking lot looking for birdseed. They will land on your hand, a thrill everyone needs.
I have been spoken to there by a ranger who pointed to the “don’t feed the animals” sign. Her main concern was that people don’t feed the squirrels.
The squirrels, on Goat Island and near the American Falls, have become tame because they are used to being fed and to stealing food from careless people.
Be carefule and enjoy the storm.
