WHY ARE THERE ICE FEATHERS?

Or, Up and Down With Winter

ICE FEATHERS (Photo by Chris Huston; not black and white)

The other day, a real bone-chiller (minus 30 on Sugarbush summit that morning) son-in-law and neighbor Chris took a walk in a field behind his house where a small stream winds its frozen way.  He took a photo of what he saw.  

In December we (not only “we”) could have spent a couple of days at the beach, wearing bathing suits practically, had we chosen to, yet a week or so later we donned ski layers for some downhill at Sugarbush and cross country at Rikerts, up Breadloaf way.  Shortly afterward––I’ve lost track of these changes––I heard some commercial maple syrup farmers (do we call them farmers if the crop is sap?) were starting to tap their trees because the sap was running.  Spring.  In January.

Skyler and me on the mountain near our house in January (Note the lack of snow!)

Whenever the snow vanishes it reveals what the dogs have left behind. (You know what I mean.)   For reasons only a dog understands, all the turds are located, appropriately, atop the septic mound.   This is where Skyler and his sister Daisy who’s often here like to sit and view the woods and the field, and where they bark at things no one else can see.  They’ve worn a straight line to what they think of as the back edge of their domain––at least a dozen feet from the invisible fence––where it makes a 90-degree turn and heads to a second spot with a slightly different vantage point.  Creatures of habit.

Halfway up at Mount Ellen, Sugarbush, one good snow day

 It’s hard to know what to do:  outdoors you can ski one day, walk along kicking fall leaves another day. 

Birds accumulating on the bush near the bird feeder one cold day

Is it because of El Niño, the warm Pacific currents that the weather pattern has been so perturbed?  In the Galapagos in December we heard about the disastrous effects of a previous El Niño. This year’s is particularly strong.  I should say, disastrous for some.  Unusual amounts of rain in that archipelago mean tough times for sea lions and some other ocean animals––their food vanishes­––but good times for land animals like iguanas and tortoises.  Deer probably benefit here because every other week the snow melts and they can browse the grasses.  The have only to wait out a couple of days of extreme cold.

One of those warmer days grandson Hans christened the dinghy (plus oars) he’d crafted this fall in the bay in Newburyport.  He arrived here a couple of days later to begin Middlebury College life (he and about a hundred other freshmen are called “Febs”) just in time for the three coldest days.  They spent the coldest day of all at the Snow Bowl where the wind chill was about 20 below (minus 29 Celsius).

Checking out the dinghy in Newburyport, in early Feb

When Chris showed us his photo of ice feathers I thought of hiking over to that stream and having a look.  I wondered whether the conditions were such that every area of frozen water would exhibit the same phenomenon.  I walked around and onto our pond.  It was smooth, the ice covered with a thin film of snow.  But near the overflow that goes beneath our driveway where the water is less likely to be still, I saw the feathers.  Not as beautiful nor as large as the ones Chris saw, but ice feathers nonetheless. This is how they are made: in really cold air wind blows the water away before it can freeze in some places while allowing it build in others.  Some water evaporates, other bits attach to already frozen bits.  The physics of crystals.  Rime ice like this is often seen on the stunted trees at mountaintop level, the ice crystals facing away from the prevailing wind.

Looks cold, doesn't it?  

Why are there ice feathers?  Because they’re beautiful, of course.