Choppy waves
January 11th, 2012I thought this hoar frost pattern looked like rough seas. I see choppy, cusp-like waves down there. Not having any pictures of rough seas, I hopped in our bathtub and kicked my legs around to make waves. Perhaps you can see a little resemblance.… more »
Book Signing at the Kalamazoo Nature Center
November 30th, 2011On Saturday, December 10, the Kalamazoo Nature Center will host the 2011 Buy Local Art & Gift Fair. Lots of artists this year and a really fun event. I will be on hand to sign copies of The Story of Snow from 1-3 PM. For more details, click here. If you… more »
The Six-fold Nature of Snow
March 15th, 2011Some people have asked me why snow crystals have six corners. The answers I’ve seen in books and the Internet are incomplete at best. Here’s a more complete answer. (A pdf copy of this article is here.) How the crystal got its “six” It’s a cold winter’s… more »
What We Sometimes Miss
March 8th, 2011For the first few years in which I would excitedly go out on frosty mornings to photograph ice formations, I never paid any attention to frost on car bodies. Sometimes I would notice something on our car window, but that was basically it – I was… more »
An Ice Vase Sprouts From a Bathtub
February 6th, 2011Someone recently sent me a beautiful image of an ice structure in the shape of a vase. The vase in that case had somehow sprouted out of a frozen birdbath. The thing reminded me of an ice vase I once found on an old plugged-up bathtub in a farmer’s… more »
Groundhog Day Blizzard - 2011
February 2nd, 2011We had a blizzard last night. (By 'we' I mean the mid section of the continental United States. ) Here in Michigan it started in the early evening, quickly accelerated, and lingered on till around noon today. At least a foot of snow fell overnight and… more »
Ice Forms on Slow-moving Water II: Pancakes and Frozen Foam
January 16th, 2011An acquaintance of mine recently discovered these odd discs of ice. The discs floated freely in an eddy behind some fallen logs on the Nooksack River’s south fork. See other photos and a short video at… more »
Ice Forms on Slow-moving Water I: Caterpillars and Cellular Dendrites
January 15th, 2011During my last winter in Japan (2009-2010), I would walk around a neighborhood park on frosty mornings, looking for interesting ice forms. It was in this park that I found one rock (only one!) that on some mornings would sprout hair-like ice, arising… 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 here in the northwest. It fell on wet ground, freezing to the surface and then growing hoar columns, making the ground white… more »
More December Snowflake Photographs
December 24th, 2010This December has proven to be pretty cold - I noticed folks ice fishing in the last few day s- but aside from a little snow at the start of the month, it's been pretty dry. Here are a few more snow crystals from the second good snow of December . As… more »
