As our intrepid Spacing Wire reporter Julie Yamin wrote on Friday, there are pieces of ice falling from the CN Tower. So much so, that the Gardiner was closed this morning and will remain closed during rush hour tonight. If you travel east-west or west-east through the downtown core, be as patient as you possible can. It took me 45 minutes to get from Lansdowne to Spadina (about 3km) this morning.
Read the Toronto Star article on the situation (it is being updated periodically). Here are some highlights:
The roadway will stay closed as long as falling ice poses a danger to traffic, said city transportation spokesperson Gary Welsh.
King St. was also shut downtown from Yonge St. to Bay St. due to ice falling from office buildings, and all TTC vehicles have been re-routed around the area, police said.
The ice collected on buildings during last Thursday’s snow and ice storm, which knocked out power to thousands of homes in the city.
Experts say this is the first time since 1976 — when the CN Tower was finished — that the structure has seen such an ice buildup.
The cause was a rare confluence of weather factors beginning with the March 1 storm. The accumulations of wet snow and freezing rain (about 6 centimetres of snow and another 13 millimetres of rain) got the ball rolling.
The quick change in temperature then caused a “flash freeze” and the winds, gusting up to 70 km/h, spread the moisture, creating a larger mass of ice, according to David Phillips, Environment Canada’s senior climatologist.
top photo by Miles Storey
bottom photo by Charla Jones/Toronto Star
4 comments
if you have pictures of falling “ice slabs” downtown, the BBC (of all people) wants them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6421273.stm
Thank goodness they built a giant penis of death down by the lake.
It may be a phallus of death – but dammit it’s our phallus of death.
I guess this gives us an idea of what might happen if we tear down the Gardiner?