As people raced home to beat the wind and the cold during Thursday night’s rush hour, the city’s rivers responded in their own way to the temperatures plummeting toward the single digits.
They began to turn into potential rinks.
The Mill River, at one of its narrows crossing under Grand Avenue, had only a smallish channel still open on the north side of the bridge looking towards East Rock.
The river running south past English Station towards the Chapel Street bridge was running a wider channel until it met a barrier of snow and ice that looked to be inches thick.
While it narrows there, it quickly broadens south of Chapel Street by Criscuolo Park at the confluence where it joins the Quinnipiac and runs into the harbor.
The far broader Quinnipiac River (pictured at sunset looking south from the Grand Avenue Bridge) sported lots of ice floes but was moving steadily out towards the harbor.
By press time, no word was available from the West River.
Beaver Pond is pretty well frozen over.