10 Bizarre Natural Cold Phenomenon

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.

 

CREATURES YOU MIGHT FIND DEEP INTO THE WOODS

Even once in our lives, we believed that mystic beings were real. It was the dwarfs to blame for our toothache and fairies took our tooth in exchange for a coin. Kids’ fantasies – I know, we all been there. Some grown-ups still believe in them, others think it was a prank. It’s not that I don’t believe in them, it’s just that I haven’t seen one. But just like you, I once believed that there are creatures that came out of the woods, far away from us. That’s why I made this list of mystic creatures to re-live the memories we share to our younger self.

 

• Fairy

Of course, number 1 in our list could be the most popular mystic being among them all. Fairies appeared in many forms of pop media. Perhaps the most famous fairy we all new is Tinker bell, the little yellow light that glows on Peter Pans shoulders in his movies and cartoons. They often appear wearing green tube dress or white silhouette gowns with their tiny butterfly or elongated pair of wings. Others even possess multi wings like Tinker Bell who has 2 sets of wings.

 

 

• Elves

Don’t get confused. Elves and dwarfs are different. Dwarfs often depicted as malevolent mystic creatures, while Elves are magical, delicate, diminutive shape-shifters and often described as kind mythical beings.  Some say, the belief in existence of elves originated on William Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, one of the classics dated around 1590’s.

• Dwarf

Watching too much of ‘Lord of the Rings’? As we seen in the movies like these, dwarfes are smaller than normal people. They have long beard and grumpy skin and face gives them unpleasant appearance. They look strong despite of their height and judging their age based on what they look will give you an inaccurate guess.

• Tanuki

If there’s a pet for mythical creatures, this could be it. Tanuki is a Japanese raccoon dog. Yes, they exist and they even share the habitat of regularly climbing trees with the North American Grey Fox. We all know that a raccoon is a rascal of the neighborhood except when they reach the land of the rising sun. Some people in Japan believed that it should be the tanukis to be blamed whenever they feel lost in the forest. You can even find statues of a tanuki in many forests of Japan.

 

• Golem

A Golem doesn’t always mean giant living pile of rock. Golems could be made out of mud, sand, clay, and even woods. As long as it is a product of nature which is originally lifeless, and even without a definite shape, yet conscious, it is already considered a Golem. Golem originates from Jewish folklores, an animated anthropomorphic being, magically created entirely from inanimate matter. They often appear on story books, movies, cartoons and animé TV shows, and even games has these giant hard creatures.

 

• Troll

Troll isn’t actually the face of the internet, not even an expression, neither a mischievous activity. Troll is a mythical creature in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. Sometimes, people depicted them as a giant, ugly, and slow-witted cave-people (since they roam in numbers). They’re rarely helpful but often look and behave exactly like humans. Different from what you expected, right?

• Goblin

If I would be the judge, the Oscar award for the creepiest creature of them all is non-other than The Goblin. No matter where you put these guys: movie, cartoon, trading card, games, etc. All of them look terrifying as hell. It’s like Yoda’s the most handsome Goblin I’ve ever seen, aside the fact that he’s not a goblin –proves the fact that there’s no such thing as cute goblin. Goblins are little creatures related to the brownie and gnome

• Dryad

I’m starting to wonder what our ancient ancestors been drinking for imagining creatures like these.  If you’re drunk last night and explaining that the tree seduced you, congratulations! You have just dated a dryad. They often look like a tree with a lady on it. I know it’s hard to imagine but that’s what Dryads are. Dryads originated in Greek mythology meaning “tree nymph”. And the Greek word drys signifies “oak” thus, dryads are specifically the nymph of oak trees.

• Nymph

Their appearance and characteristics depends on their surroundings. If the environment is mangrove, ocean, marsh, or lake, they’re most likely had scales, flippers, and even a tail fin. But if the habitat is forest, they could have horns similar to a reindeer or growing leaves on their skin. Their unique trait would be their appearance of young, beautiful maidens who love to dance and sing. Nymphs are more like spirits than a creature. Now you know the reason behind the word “Nymphomaniac”.

• Orc

Thanks to the game ‘Defense of the Ancients (DotA)”, orcs became popular and playable. An orc is a fictional humanoid creature that is part of a fantasy race of goblins. Orcs as depicted on J. R. R. Tolkein, the writer of ‘Lord of The Rings’, orcs are a brutish, aggressive, repulsive, and generally malevolent creatures. It’s also been adapted on strategy games, like the one I mentioned earlier. If these creatures were true and you happen to lost your way inside a forest, then you better pray that a fairy spots you than these guys.

 

• Ogre

Ogre’s are said to be more terrifying than Orcs. Why? Because orcs are more into warring stuff and most likely leaving you dead while Ogre’s will eat you alive. The most popular Ogre we know is none other than the most handsome of them all, Shrek –in his movie named after him. As we seen on some movies and books, an Ogre looks like an orc but larger, hideous, and man-like and eats human beings.

• Changeling

All of these are just mythical creatures and a bunch of good story for the nursery rhymes until one of your children is suddenly acting strange like you have the feeling that he or she’s not your child anymore. Your child must’ve played in the woods and been swapped with a changeling is a mythical being capable of shape shifting children who’s kidnapped by fairies. Not all fairies are good. There’s a movie titled ‘Christmas horror story’ wherein a child has been secretly substituted with a changeling by parents. Scary, right?

Did I miss something? Do you have something in your mind that you want to share? Tell me in the comments and I’d be happy to share my thoughts.

 

 

Nature’s Work of Arts: Ice Caves

Ice caves are one of the mysterious artworks that mother nature has ever made. The beauty and the magnificent view that it brings, this kind of natural cave contains significant amounts of permanent ice or at least a portion of the cave have a temperature below 0 °C all year round. Cool right? Yes, it is literally super cool inside these caves. Water traveled into the cave’s cold zone also known as a glacier.

Here are some places we can witness one of the best nature’s artworks, the ice caves:

Eisriesenwelt ice cave, Austria

         

Eisrienwelt a German word, meaning “for a world of the ice giants”. It is a natural limestone ice cave located in Werfen, Austria, about 40 km south of Salzburg. The cave is inside the Hochkogel Mountain in the Tennengebirge section of the Alps. It is the largest ice cave in the world extending more than 42km and visited by about 200,000 tourists every year. The caves were officially discovered in 1879 by an Austrian natural scientist named Anton Posselt was soon forgotten by the society. Only the residents of Werfen were aware of the caves existence, believing it to be a gateway to Hell. For many years, the caves remained unexplored, but in 1912, Alexander von Mork led several expeditions and later followed by others. When the first routes in the mountains were created, the caves soon rose to fame as tourists began to flourish in the area.

 

Kamchatka ice cave, Russia

   

Would you believe this place can be defined as a place of the land of ice and fire? This strange looking ice cave is located on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. The half-mile-long  cave was formed by a hot water spring flowing beneath the glacial ice fields at the bottom of the Mutnovsky volcano. Because glaciers on Kamchatka volcanoes have been melting in recent years, the roof of this cave is now so thin that sunlight comes through the thin layer of ice and snow and creates an unbelievable sight.

 

Big Four Ice Caves, Washington

   

Big Four Mountain is a mountain in the Cascade Range of Washington, located 21 miles east of Granite Falls. The mountain is about 6,135 ft high and on its north flank, debris piles form from avalanches and are able to remain their year-round because of the continuous shade provided by the mountain. During the summer, snow-melt streams flow beneath the debris piles and cause caves to be formed in the ice.

 

Mount Erebus Ice Caves, Antartica

      

Currently the most active volcano in Antarctica and the southernmost active volcano on Earth, the Mt. Erebus volcano have a 1,700-degree Fahrenheit lava lake, a swirling pool of magma many miles deep and one of only five that exist in the world. Located in Mt. Erebus are numerous complicated ice caves. Discovered in 1841 by polar explorer Sir James Clark Ross, it was easy to identify Mt. Erebus as a volcano as it was erupting at the time. Later, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton would make the first ascent of Mt. Erebus in 1907 on the Nimrod Expedition. Ice form in the course of hot gasses traveling up through cracks and fractures in the volcanic rocks surrounding the Erebus summit has created an intricate system of ice caves all over the mountain. Because of the gas, the ice caves stay a consistent 32 degrees, making them a likely spot.

 

Ice Pavilion, Switzerland

    

A 70-meter long tunnel leads into the thousands of years old ice of the Fairy Glacier, to what is most probably the world’s largest ice pavilion. The over 5,500 cubic meters large grotto, located at the Mittelallalin stop of Metro Alpin, the subterranean Alpine train at an altitude of 3,456 meters above sea level, offers an in-depth view of the interior of the glacier. It is a long, lighted tunnel leads to a network of caves, whose size rivals Eisriesenwelt in Austria. Perhaps even more amazing than the natural ice formations are the ice sculptures scattered.

Well, if I have the chance to visit it all, I would really love to do it with all my heart. As they said the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.