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Just wanted to share this freeze pattern on our pond yesterday morning. I’ve never seen anything like it, although the water usually freezes in a variety of ways. The shapes were SO large and 3D, with the peaks being raised about 3/4″ and the triangular areas being approximately 2-3″ by 4-5″. Any thoughts on what conditions would cause this? Frederick County, VA Erin Boyers Fox
I don’t remember seeing this before but it is very cool. Yes, no pun intended!
There is a technical discussion under the link of how it may form.
They found that regardless of turbulence or snowflake type, acceleration follows a universal statistical pattern that can be described as an exponential distribution.
Because size determines terminal velocity, a possible explanation is that the turbulence in clouds that influences snowflake size is related to the turbulence measured at the ground. Yet the factor of three halves remains a mystery.
Snowflake accelerations mysteriously follow a predictable pattern
Another mystery.
I mentioned the above before. I should have had this Larson toon with it. It is one of my favorites. What got me is all of the comments online that couldn’t handle it. Too soon?