On February 20th Mother Nature offered a beautiful surprise on my Birthday! Here are just a few photos from around my area depicting the results of the Frost not snow! I have never had the pleasure of seeing anything like this and it is such a beautiful sight!
This majestic frost is called Rime. Until today I had never heard of these terms. Here is how one weather forecast explained it. “Where it did become foggy, rime formed as the fog droplets froze onto objects such as trees and fences. Rime is more spectacular than hoar frost as it denser and harder, and often creates beautiful icy structures on objects such as trees and fences.”
Frost can occur as dew forms through the night and starts to freeze, crystals start to grow and can give a very wintry scene as bushes, tree branches, cars and grass verges amongst other things will start to become coated by the fine crystals which then grow from surrounding moisture as the night goes on. By morning, it can appear to have snowed, even though the skies will have been clear all night.
Riming, or deposition of ice, is very similar to hoar frost, but can occur when you have a moist layer near the ground, and appears very similar to hoar frost in that an ice crystals will build up. This forms from liquid which is supercooled to begin with, such as freezing fog.
Below is a close up of a seed pod from our garden which shows the ice crystals more clearly:
“After weeks of fair weather, winter has finally set in, with freezing fog lifting to reveal an icy landscape across much of northern England.” (Reported by the Daily Mail).
The rest are photos from our village. It was such a beautiful sight and a wonderful surprise:
