Ice disks form along Missouri River as bitter cold hits Kansas City. What are they?
Residents near Berkley Riverfront in Kansas City noticed several circular slabs of ice floating along the Missouri River on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
These strange formations only appear in the right weather conditions, which includes the bitter cold Kansas City is currently experiencing.
The ice disks spotted along the river aren’t a new weather pattern. They have been reported in numerous bodies of water around the country, like at Lake Superior in Wisconsin and at Lake Michigan along Chicago.
It’s a phenomenon known as pancake ice, and the disks tend to show up in very cold oceans and lakes around the world. They’re frequently spotted in the Baltic Sea around Antarctica, according to The Met Office, the United Kingdom’s weather service.
What is pancake ice? How does it form? Here’s what to know about the slabs found in the Missouri River.
Pancake Ice
It must be below-freezing temperatures for pancake ice to form on lakes, oceans and rivers, since it’s made of water that floats on the surface.
Pancake ice begins as a thin layer of ice or slush on the water’s surface, according to The Weather Channel. The water’s waves create the disks, as pieces of ice knock against each other and round the edges as they freeze and grow.
Splashing water from the ice bouncing around helps create the small rims on the edges since it freezes over time. The disks can grow to 30 centimeters to 3 meters in diameter, and up to about 10 centimeters in thickness, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
While the ice looks firm, it breaks easily. No matter their size, these lily pad-looking ice structures are likely to fall apart when weight is applied.
In a more aggressive ocean environment with pancake ice, the individual slabs can push over each other in a process called rafting, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The slabs can then freeze together and form a solid ice sheet.
