An ice dam (or ice jam) occurs when water builds up behind a blockage of ice. Ice dams can occur in various ways which include a glacier blocking an unfrozen river and a thawing river being blocked by a still-frozen section further on. On a small scale the term can be used for ice blockages of gutters and spouts on buildings.
Read more about Ice Dam: Caused By A Glacier, On Rivers, On Roofs of Buildings
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or dam:
“When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain! The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The devil take one party and his dam the other!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)