The famous giant, icy, spinning “duck carousel” is back in the great state of Maine, and video and pictures show just how massive it really is.
At the Presumpscot River located in Westbrook, Maine, there is an eddy – pockets of water moving in a circular direction – in the river and it freezes.
The middle of the eddy is moving the slowest, so it’s the most likely part to freeze, and when it spins, it creates an icy carousel for the migrating ducks to ride on.
Honestly the best part of this ice disk are the ducks taking a ride on it ?❤️? pic.twitter.com/0Lz9qlUHaW
— Taylor Gleason (@TaylorGleason__) January 15, 2019
The natural phenomenon is the result of cold air colliding with mini whirlpools creating a frozen block of ice shaped in a giant circle that gradually gets trimmed down into a near-perfect circle due to the continuing current making the block of ice spin and get its edges scraped against the rocks and ice.
It appears sometimes in the winter months and was first reported in 2019 and 2020.
Many photos and videos have been shared on social media and one person commenting on the phenomenon had their own theories of how the ice was spinning.
“I’m not going to accuse you guys of engineering this,” Meteorologist at WCSH/WLBZ Keith Carson jokingly wrote under a Facebook post by City of Westbrook, “but I did see Patrick Dempsey in a wetsuit swimming around there in big circles just a few days ago.”