now we know

[cellio]

Remember this funky snow formation, from the storm on Feb 6?



I wondered then how long it would hold that form. (It had already survived most of a day when I took the picture, which is longer than I would have thought.) The answer turned out to be: 12 days. It was there last night when I came home from work, and gone this morning. It did suffer some minor degradation along the way, but only minor -- the form was intact.

Wow.

Comments

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

WOW, indeed!

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

It's almost a shame you didn't coat the whole thing with plastic to preserve it (although your fence would probably suffer from rot if you had). That was the coolest snow thing I've seen in a long time.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Did you ever figure out what caused it? Never seen anything like that before.

[grouchyoldcoot.livejournal.com]

It was distorted by a really strong gravity wave passing through, and just happened to freeze in that position. Yup, that's it.

[ticklethepear.livejournal.com]

A wave? An overhang?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know the physics/chemistry of this type of snow formation, but we see them frequently up here in Alaska. They seem to form when there is rapid build-up of snow. When the snow comes a few inches here, a few inches there, you don't usually see them. I suspect that the force of the weight of the snow causes the crystals to stick together.

--Carrie

[cellio]

Thanks. That makes sense. This storm was 21" in about 15-18 hours -- definitely more than we're used to at once.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

This has been very cohesive snow. There's a chain link fence overhanging a bridge near CMU, and the snow hung on the fence for several days.

[byronhaverford.livejournal.com]

Each crenelation and embrasure is dumping its load of snow all at once. At random intervals, an alarming KA-THUMP echoes through the house.

[cellio]

We've been hearing KA-THUMPs throughout the day even without crenelations. I presume that yours are more impressive; I think ours are icicles falling.