Lake Effect is when warm moist air comes off a body of water and mixes with cold dry air above, creating precipitation. It’s also the positive influence the lake has on my mood. Even in “bad” weather, when I’m by the lake I can’t stop smiling.
2025 has been great for ice. I’ve walking to where the Humber River meets the Toronto shore of Lake Ontario daily for over a month. The Snake Bridge (The Humber Bay Arch Bridge) has become a beacon for me.
My journey starts before dawn and it takes an hour to get there.
On the Bridge, I can look down into the river as it enters the lake. In the last month the temperatures have been very cold, and with the wind, quite unforgiving. The more wind there is, the less likely there will be ice anywhere.
Horizon Line
When I’m not on the bridge I stick to an area inside a man-made break-wall that protects the shoreline from the worst of what can be a very turbulent lake. The break-wall also gives the lake around the shoreline a better chance to freeze. Inside the break-wall is an artificial harbour that runs across the west end of the city. The crude concrete wall, morphs into a boulder wall at times, and runs at varying distance from the shore line, a shore line which is either beach, rocky shore, or lightly wooded areas.
For many years from Ontario Place you could see the lake directly without the break-wall obstruction. However, as they build the new private spa on the public land where Ontario Place once was, the site can’t be accessed. You can see the break-wall in the images below, as it partially blocks the view to the big lake and in turn duplicates the natural horizon line.
Whispering Ice
I see some cool things every year, but the most remarkable was what I’ve affectionately called Whispering Ice or Smoke Ice. Both terms are better than the Russian coined “ice lard” which is also a term that’s been used to describe this type of formation.
In these photographs it was snowing heavily. That snow fell into the Humber river as it flowed into greater Lake Ontario. It mixed with the almost freezing water near the surface of the lake and formed these ghostly clouds of ice.
The Calm
Both fluctuations in winter temperatures, and the daily wind speed effect the formation of ice in the area I visit. Because of this there are often cold days with no ice because of the wind, and warmer days will full ice covering because it’s calm.
There are a lot of ways the ice can form, break down, move and behave. These are images of realtively wind free days that are cold enough to start or thinly freeze the surface water.
Sheet Ice
When the surface ice freezes or as it melts, depending on currents, wind, surface movement and temperatures, sheets form. These often look jigsaw like or labyrinthine, with sections of ice interspersed with small rivers of unfrozen lake.
Pancake Ice
When sheet ice has a chance to melt a bit and re-freeze, rubbing against the adjacent ice flow it can make more circular shapes known as pancake ice.
Open Water
There’s something magical about looking out into the open lake and only seeing water and sky. I’ll never grow tired of it. This this year where the shoreline is very close to the end of the break-wall at the Humber, there are piles of sand you can climb to see up and over the wall into the big lake. In one of the images below you can see how unforgiving the winter lake is when it’s windy and super-cold.
Snowball Ice
Yet another first for me. Again, looking down from the West Humber Bridge, 20 metres below. Ball Ice.