Pen in Hand: Water into ice
Pen in Hand: Water into ice
By: Jon Hammond
Description: Patterns of winter
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Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
Viewed 605 times
0 responses 0 comments In addition to the welcome snow and rain that March brought to the Tehachapi area, the third month of 2006 was also the coldest of the winter, with colder overnight lows than December, January or February.
Just a few degrees difference in temperature makes a profound difference in our weather: only two or three degrees Fahrenheit one way or the other will determine whether a storm brings rain or snow, whether Highway 58 will be open or closed, it will determine whether we have dew or frost, and that small margin will even decide if fruit blossoms survive to produce fruit in the summer and fall.
Tehachapi spring storms tend to balance right on the margin, veering between snowy rain or rainy snow, sometimes warming into straight rain and other times cooling into pure snow.
After one of these recent hybrid storms on March 21, the temperature dropped just to freezing in the night and produced ice at the surface, though the soil didn’t freeze and there was still liquid water beneath the ice in puddles.
I went out early in the morning of March 22 and took some photos of the interesting
forms that the ice took. One unusual phenomenon was present that I’ve enjoyed since I was a little boy: In some cases, ice formed on top of temporary puddles of rainfall and snowmelt, but then because the ground itself wasn’t frozen, the water continued to soak into the soil, leaving ice suspended on top of puddles that had vanished.
As kids we liked to crunch through these thin ice sheets when helping my uncle do
chores on cold winter mornings because there was no water underneath the ice to get your feet soaking wet — just ice with hollow pockets beneath them.
Trapped air bubbles beneath forming ice, wind and fluctuating temperatures can all make interesting features appear in pond or puddle ice — and leave traces you can interpret if you know what to look for.
I hope you enjoy these photos of Tehachapi ice phenomena, and I hope we don’t have more opportunities to see these this spring!
Have a good week.
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