It was cold last week. Colder than I remember since moving to Colorado. Below zero (F) cold. Kinda wimpy for Vermont or Minnesota, but I'm here on a south-facing slope, with 300 sunny days a year, and it doesn't have to get to 20 below for me to feel it.
The cold, clear weather came on top of a couple feet of snow. And that has meant surface hoar.
I'm not a snow scientist. I'm not a backcountry skier, either, for that matter. My students could tell you much more about surface hoar and what it means for avalanche danger next time it snows.
Me, I just know that the surface of the snow sparkles, and that there are these tiny little tree-like crystals sticking up everywhere, and they are beautiful.
(The surface hoar photos are mine; the moon photo was taken by my husband.)
On a related note, I caught the beginning of this story on NPR about snowflakes. (I wanted to listen to the entire thing, but I have a four-year-old, and he wanted to discuss urinating polar bears. Some people hear stories about polar bears and think "oh, no, climate change!" My four-year-old thinks of the time his grandparents saw polar bears peeing at the zoo.) There are some beautiful photos linked from the story.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Ice crystals on the snow
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1 comment:
our administrative assistant is crazy about snowflakes & hadn't seen that story yet, so i got brownie points for sending it along :)
my PhD office mate is crazy about polar bears--it comes from doing her dissertation research in NE Greenland. our office was covered in polar bear posters in various languages and stuffed bears... well, beyond the eclogites & softball sized garnets :)
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