Look at This Bizarre Ice Formation

(Photo: Nick Mattlock)

They look like ice shelves, but that's not what's happening in this photo. A wire fence stretches along the Cheviot Hills in Northumberland, UK. The wind blew straight at the fence from the right. Ice particles gradually built up along the wire. A spokesman for the Met Office, which is the UK's weather bureau, explained to the BBC:

There has to be a strong wind, temperatures have to be between plus one Celsius and minus one Celsius and there has to be plenty of moisture. This can either be from water vapour in the air, from snowfall or from freezing rain. The wind blows the moisture over the object, in this case the fence, and it freezes, building up a thick layer of ice on the windward side. This means that the wind was actually blowing from the right to the left of the photo.

-via Twisted Sifter


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"Hard rime is a white ice that forms when the water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects... This fog freezes to the windward (wind-facing) side of tree branches, buildings, or any other solid objects, usually with high wind velocities and air temperatures between −2 and −8 °C (28.4 and 17.6 °F)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_rime
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