winter freeze

winter freeze

we've just had a really cold snap that's lasted about 3 weeks and led to some amazing ice formations in the shady areas around town and in the woods. icicles as thick as my arm, freeze-thaw ice crystal growth in the ground and huge encrustings of ice on the creek I go for a walk by. check it out...


hoar frost ice crystals - each made up of perfect hexagonal ice tubes about 1mm wide


icicles - the biggest we saw were 15-20cm diameter


the old hydro pipe and dam


amazing ice formations on the edge of the waterfall


the icicles above this looked like organ pipes


curved ice crystals formed as the expanding crystals pushed earth sideways from the edge of a bank and gravity pulled them down as they formed

we also saw holes in the tracks where stones and boulders had melted the ice crystals under them and sunk into the expanded earth, by as much as 10-15cm. on the banks at the edge of roads there's ice floes over exposed rock inches thick where it's been accumulating for the past weeks, and in places the frost is so heavy & accumulated it looks like snow! makes the freezing temperatures a little more worthwhile :)