NIAGARA FALLS: Most of the eastern United States is in the grips of a sustained cold spell. Niagara Falls is one place where the deep freeze is as much seen as it is felt on the American and Canadian sides. Life has been brought to a standstill with pipes being frozen and water mains bursting.
Mist from the surging waters has been freezing instantly on everything it touches, coating trees, walkways, cliffs and overlooks in a dreamy, brilliant white.
The visitors who are daring to visit the place in the extreme temperatures are treating themselves to snapshots and selfies in the winter wonderland.
"It's outstanding. As cold as it gets, it's a year-round attraction," Paul Tabaczynski, who travelled from Buffalo to see the spectacle, said during a visit to the falls.
Although everything around them has frozen, the three waterfalls that make up the natural attraction between the United States and Canada continue to flow and churn up the frosty mist.
The westerly wind usually blows it toward the US side, National Weather Service meteorologist Steven Welch said, where the moisture wraps every inch of the landscape in white.
"I can't feel my feet!" 12-year-old Keila Cruz told her father, Jonathan, as she and a dozen other family members thawed out inside the Niagara Falls State Park visitor center during a trip from Deltona, Florida.
This is what Niagara Falls looks like right now. pic.twitter.com/Lm8lgMZnou
— Globe Pics (@Globe_Pics) January 3, 2018
What a Crazy sight to see!! Never have I seen the Falls completely frozen...definitely worth the walk in -522 degree weather! _ #NiagaraFalls #BRRR pic.twitter.com/8Kd30wZSTQ
— _Diane _ (@DianaV7654) January 3, 2018
With a deep freeze stretching from south Texas to Canada and from Montana through New England, the surreal scenes have played out across a wide swath of the US.
