It’s been a reasonably mile winter so far, with only a few really chilly days. The forecast had temperatures dropping this afternoon with a low in the mid single digits (Fahrenheit) tonight. In the last afternoon I went out and it was definitely colder than it had been. The standing water on the lawn in the back yard was starting to freeze and making some really pretty crystal formations. It’s not the easiest thing to photograph but I think this one shows it pretty well. This ice is very thin, less than a millimeter, but by the morning the water will almost certainly be frozen solid.
Tagged With: Freezing
Water Freezing
Freezing Pond
The temperature didn’t get as low as we had been led to believe overnight, but it was 10°F this morning, which is chilly enough. I wear a light jacket when it gets this cool out, although really what I needed was gloves. The steering wheel of the car was pretty cold. I took some pictures of the pond between my office building and the next early this afternoon. The water level has dropped a few feet from when the ice started to form, so there were large sheets of ice around the banks of the pond that were left behind as the water moved out from under them. There was also ice on branches that had been underwater but now were about a foot above. It was quite pretty.
Ice
It was significantly warmer today and the ice was starting to melt. I had to walk across campus to a meeting (well, I didn’t have to walk but I chose to). After the meeting I went out into the woods for a little while to take some pictures. There is a stream running through the woods and a very boggy area next to it with ice throughout. I took a few pictures of the ice, which to me looks a lot like contour maps, which I find quite beautiful. I think I’m drawn to things that are fleetingly beautiful. Their transient nature hurts because I know they will shortly be gone but perhaps that adds to their appeal at the same time. A sunset, a pattern in ice, a beautiful and dramatic sky, they all last for a moment and then are gone forever.
Ice On My Car Window
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, it rained pretty much all day yesterday after there was freezing rain the night before. Overnight the water on my car’s windows formed quite large ice crystals. They were hard to get a good picture of but I tried, anyway. The problems is the lack of contrast in the crystals. Thus picture doesn’t actually show much detail in the ice but I like the way the wet ice crystals make the view beyond the window into a somewhat abstract image.