Friday, December 16, 2016

Ice crystals

Ice crystals are interesting to observe this season of the year.  About a week ago, I removed the ice from the top of a bucket I have sitting under the eave of the house.  The crystals on the underside of the ice had formed fascinating patterns.  I tried to take some pictures to illustrate.

 


 
Ice crystals are also responsible for some interesting phenomena in the sky.  I frequently see sundogs in the sky, which I'm told are formed by sunlight being refracted by ice crystals in the clouds.  Here are a pair of sundogs I saw one day last week.  I think the second (to the left of the sun) is probably in the cloud of a jet contrail.  Even on otherwise clear days, we are likely to have some jet trails in the sky here, so there is plenty of opportunity to see sundogs. 



1 comment:

  1. funny that. I like ice crystals, but I have never looked at the flip side of a frozen bucket layer. I won't have a chance as long as our lifestyle includes Florida. BUT maybe I will when I get too old to go south. (wonder what birds do then they are too old to go south. I never thought of that before.
    Love and the best from Florida!!!

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