The abundant ice in the river during the ice flood season clogs the river course and makes the water level rise, which poses a great threat to the safety of the embankments along the river. In order to investigate the law of overtopping failure of cohesive soil embankments during ice flood season, a physical model of laboratory flumes was established. By changing the water content of embankment body and the flow in the river, the breach patterns, breach development and water level change under ice flood condition were simulated and analyzed. The results show that the ice extrusion plays an important role in the failure process of the embankment body. The water content of the dike and the flow of the river have significant effects on the process of the embankment failure. Compared with the flood condition, the development of the failure under ice flood condition is relatively slow in the early stage, but more intense in the middle and late stage. Furthermore, the peak water level in front of the dike under ice condition is higher than that under flood condition.