Rofener Ice Lake

The Rofener Eissee was an ice dam lake that occurred several times in the past in the Ötztal Alps in Tyrol, caused by the advance of the Vernagt Glacier into the Rofental Valley. During its outbursts, it caused devastating damage as far as the Inn Valley. The Vernagt Glacier, which runs approximately in a north-south direction and ends a few kilometers above the transversely running Rofental, advanced several times very rapidly to the valley floor during the Little Ice Age. In the process, it dammed up at the Zwerchwand on the opposite side of the Rofental, blocking the path of the Rofenache coming from the Hintereis and Hochjoch Glaciers, which formed a lake behind it. This lake could be more than 2 km long and have a volume of over 10 million m³. Unlike the Gurgler Eissee, the dam consisted not of a compact ice body, but of loosely piled ice blocks, into which the tongue of the Vernagt Glacier had been torn due to the high flow velocity. The ice lake often drained safely under or over the ice dam; however, sometimes the pressure of the water masses led to the spontaneous breakage of the dam, resulting in a large flood wave that poured through the Rofental and subsequently through the Venter Valley and the Ötztal into the Inn Valley, causing devastating destruction. Even though very few people died directly in the process, the harvest failed in the ravaged fields, leading to famines.

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