Does anyone find this strange?


PADUCAH - Many of you have asked us why local rivers aren't frozen following the brutal winter and sub-freezing temperatures. It might surprise you, but the temperatures are part of the reason why the Ohio River is not frozen.

It was January of 1918 when the high temperature was only 20 degrees. Blizzard-like conditions caused snow to stack up along Broadway, and the Ohio River froze completely. This was a rarity.

"I think it'll be hard to compare the Ohio River today to back in 1918 because we do have a series of locks and dams up and down the river to help regulate water," said Mary Lamm, a National Weather Service Hydrologist.

She believes that could be the reason that type of freezing did not happen again until the 1960's and later in 1978.

"I remember very vividly as a kid, being taken down there to look because we'll probably never see this again. People were walking from Louisville across the river to Indiana, and some people were trying to drive," Lamm said. "My husband grew up down here, he said it did freeze from bank to bank, but they were told not to go on it because it wasn't very thick."

There's ice on the banks today, but that s about it. Lamm says we just haven't been cold for a long stretch of time, and that is keeping the rivers flowing. She also mentioned the upper parts of the Ohio River near Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are having trouble with ice jams, but there is narrower and the temperatures have been colder.

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