Category: Announcements
Seeing Things in the Frost
January 15th, 2012In looking at the Cloud Appreciation Society's website recently, in which viewers post images of clouds that look like various objects, I started wondering if we could do that for frost patterns. more »
Hoared Hail and Coraline Cups
December 31st, 2010As far as I could tell, nobody had predicted hail last night, yet there it was on the ground, the largest hail I’ve ever seen in the northwest. It fell on wet ground, freezing to the surface and then growing hoar columns, making the ground white and crun… more »
BEDFISH: Revising an old Idea for Classifying Surface Ice Forms
January 31st, 2010 It often seems like people refer to any kind of ice stuck on something as frost. If one looks in books or the Internet, one can usually find a specific term for the many different and interesting ice formations, but a term used by one group of people… more »
White Snow, Black Snow, Pink Snow, Blue Snow
January 3rd, 2010Hands down, my favorite book for browsing is M. Mineart’s The Nature of Light & Color in the Open Air. In it, he has a short section (#93) on black snow, in which he notes how the apparent whiteness of a falling snowflake seems to change from blackis… more »
Ice of Hearts
December 28th, 2009Back when I lived in Boulder, CO, I worked with Charles Knight on developing a new way to grow ice crystals for experimental study. I knew that the problem with most methods was twofold: there were too many crystals too close together to be able to learn… more »
Hoar in a Hole
December 26th, 2009 A hole in the ground is a good place to look for large hoar crystals. Next to some rice paddies, just uphill from the tubs, lies a few small holes in the cement roadway. From eye level, the white tinge of hoar frost just inside the lip is easily overl… more »
Reflections off Falling Crystals
December 26th, 2009On my morning icespotting trip the other morning (12/19), I caught a glipse of an unusual sight - a sun pillar. I thought I saw one once last winter, but this one was unmistakable. It seemed more striking even than the one in Robert Greenler's book "Rain… more »
It Came Out of the Sky
December 26th, 2009Our first snowfall came overnight with a howling westerly, but left just a light dusting. Only certain surfaces with a wide view of the sky were cool enough to preserve the snow. The only place in our yard was the roof of our car, which I've found in the… more »
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