Here in this neighborhood of Japan, we finally had our first good frost day. By frost, I mean any ice that forms from vapor that condenses (wet or dry) onto a surface. We rarely get snow, typically just one or two short-lived, wet snowfalls over winter, but we often get frost.  Frost might be common here because the temperature just dips a little below freezing (0 degrees Celcius), winter skies are often clear, and the humidity is high. For example, in my yard, about seven feet above ground (where I have a safe place for my temperature/humidity meter), the relative humidity last night stayed between 80 and 87% and the air temperature got down to 1.6 Celcius. But the temperature on surfaces exposed to the sky got colder. For example, on some metal plates I put in our carport, the temperature reached -6.0 Celcius. Roofs of cars parked in a more exposed area probably got even colder. The pictures below show frost from two black car roofs.

These pictures show a mixture of two types of frost: windowpane, or film, frost, which is often clear and curvy, and hoar frost, which is white and straight. Film frost grows along the surface; hoar grows out of the surface. For the snow crystal fan who lives in a place with little snow, hoar frost is the next best thing. I say this because hoar grows just like snow - sometimes like a branch of a thin star and sometimes like a column. Film frost is ice that grows in a thin film of liquid water that condensed like dew on the surface. For reasons that remain mysterious, film frost usually curves. After the liquid in the film crystallizes, hoar crystals sprout off the ice, growing upward, away from the surface. In the top image, hoar has just started, but enough has grown to make the curved ice white, in good contrast with the black surface below. In the bottom image, if you look closely, you can see the stubble of hoar whiskers growing as tiny ice columns off the surface (at this magnification, it is hard to determine if the hoar consists of columns or thin-star branches).

The thing that is totally bizzare about film frost is that the ice not only curves, but each curve consists of a crystal structure that twists. Hoar and snow do not twist. To picture what I mean by twist, imagine holding a huge snow star and twisting each branch in such a way that the crystal resembles a six-blade propeller. Real snow doesn't twist, but film frost does. Because the hoar grows off the twisting ice, the hoar columns tilt differently in different regions. You can see this if you look closely at the bottom image.

Great news!

The Story of Snow has been named an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12 by the National Science Teacher's Association and Children's Book Council!

The Kalamazoo Gazette ran a front page article about The Story of Snow on Wednesday, December 9.

Click here to check it out!

The weather was quite accomodating as a blizzard moved into west Michigan around the same time.

- Mark

A little while ago the New York Public Library came out with their recommended list of children's books called 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing. The Story of Snow is included!

Here's a nice stellar dentrite from last December - almost a year ago. This winter is turning out to be pretty mild so far, here in Michigan at least...

If you are interested in kids' books for the holidays, check out the 18 New Holiday Books For Kids photo gallery on the website of the Chicago Tribune - which is www.chicagotribune.com.

I particularly like #2 in the lineup - but there are a lot of interesting titles here!

Click Here to go there!

- Mark

The good folks at Chronicle Books have put together a teacher's guide for The Story of Snow. In my storied past, I spent a few years working as an Assistant Superintendent in an urban school district. I was the HR Director and did not get directly involved in instruction, but I did develop a great appreciation for the rigorous life of a Teacher.

So if you are a teacher and plan to use The Story of Snow in your classroom - grab the teacher's guide. Every resource helps!

To download the guide - click this link:

StoryOfSnow_TeachersGuide_WEB.pdf

It is a 1.7 MB PDF file.

And thanks to Chronicle Books for putting this together!

The Kalamazoo Nature Center's Buy Local Art and Gift Fair is coming up in just 2 weeks. I'll be on hand to sign books and talk about snow crystyal photography from 11 a.m. till 1 p.m. The Art Fair runs from 10 to 4, and in the afternon the results of the Photoblitz contest will be unveiled. Holidays At The Homestead will also be in full swing, with live Celtic Music, horse drawn carriage rides, and other holiday festivities from the past at the historic DeLano Homestead. For more about the event, visit www.naturecenter.org.

And don't forget the December 4 art hop at Nature Connection in downtown Kalamazoo!

- Mark

I just confirmed that I’ll be interviewed on the Lori Moore Show – AM 590 WKZO Kalamazoo – around 9:45 a.m. on Friday, December 4. I expect we’ll be talking about The Story of Snow, the Art Hop at Nature Connection that evening, the upcoming “Buy Local” event at that Kalamazoo Nature Center, and about anything else that comes up!

Just for the fun of it - here is a snow crystal from 12/21/2008. We've had an unusually warm fall in Kalamazoo this year, so it's hard to believe that we'll be seeing snow like this in less than a month - but I can hope!

- Mark

On Friday, Decmeber 4, I'll be participating in the December Art Hop at Nature Connection - a cool nature oriented gift store located in Downtown Kalamazoo. I'll be there to sign copies of The Story of Snow, and will also have photo note cards and matted prints.

The Art Hop is from 5 - 9 on December 4, and Nature Connections is located at the corner of Lovell and Burdick. See you there there!

- Mark

On November 14 I joined Coolidge J. Bligh and Gary Cialdella at Kazoo Books - a great local / independent book store - for a local author's book signing. I was there with The Story of Snow and appreciate all the folks who came by for a copy.

It was also great to catch up a bit with Gary Cialdella, whose collection of urban landscape photos called The Calumet Area: An American Place was recently published jointly by the University of Illinois and the Brauer Museum of Art. I first met Gary almost a decade ago at a workshop with Mark Klett at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art. Gary's landscape photography is very inspiring, and if ever you tire of snow crystal photos, you should take a look at his book. It's great stuff and an inspiration to all of us who love B&W landscape work.

- Mark