Just when you thought you saw everything in the northern hemisphere: until the ice came knocking on your door.
If you’re living in places where you know that zero isn’t the lowest point, then you might already heard some of these 10 bizarre natural cold phenomenons. I’m warning you, mother nature is the most scariest mom you don’t want to piss off during her cold mood. While some could be devastating, others may look….out-of-this-worldly but natural.
1. Hail of Hailstorm
This isn’t considered rare anymore but you would wish it is. Thunderstorms which produces hail that reaches the ground is called Hailstorm. If you happen to see your car’s windshield have holes the size of a golf ball, don’t call the cops right away. It could be the hail produced by hailstorms and melted in heat.
2. Striped Glacier
Yes. A glacier with stripes. Experts even treat the black-striped ones as rare. This happens when frozen melt water, sediment and even algae combined with huge pressures.
3. Shoved Ice
These creepy pile of ice slowly crawling from a nearby lake is an effect of extreme temperature drop. When it happens, the water freezes rapidly, thus pushing ice and snow along the edges away from the lake.
4. Snow Rollers
Playful looking doughnuts of winter wonderland. These rollers are formed only under perfect temperature conditions: When a mass of snow blown to fall on other snow with the right strength of wind and favorable slope, the snow rolls. And as for the hole, the center will collapse making a doughnut shape.
5. Ice Fumarole
Volcanoes has fumaroles. A fumarole is a vent that extend to the surface, allowing steam from volcanoes to escape out in the open. Arctic volcanoes also have fumaroles but the temperature is too cold that steam particles freezes upon contact with the outside air building up tall chimneys of ice.
6. Penitentes
When the sun’s rays melts the fields of snow in low humidity and high altitude, the frozen water immediately evaporates without even turning to liquid.
7. Frozen Bubbles
These bubbles that are trapped and frozen on their way to the surface is highly flammable yet harmless gas of methane that came from bacteria after consuming dead organic matter.
8. Finnish Lapland
They are just actually trees covered with snow in Finnish Lapland where Snow blizzards may result to sub-freezing temperatures.
9. Brinicle
The most horrible phenomenon in the list. I even thought of blurring the part but this is nature. A brine is a solution of salt in water. When newly formed sea ice creates very salty brine that is denser than the sea water, it sinks to the bottom and freezes water and everything surrounding it.
10. Frost Flower
I’ve seen 2 ways on how theses icy fragile wonders form: Hallow tubes of ice form vertically from the imperfections, pulling moisture debris into the structure. More Ice grows over those imperfections, bringing in more moisture and debris, and continues making an entire field of frozen lilies. And: When ice in extremely thin layer is pushed out from the stems of plants or occasionally, wood. This event creates wonderful patterns which curl and fold into stunning icy petals.
I Was There 