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Copyright Issues
Frost Photos
   ... Some contributed pictures of different types of frost and ice ...
   People have sent me numerous pictures of frost and ice formations over the years.  Some of these are shown here.  If you would like to contribute a picture or two, or just have a comment, please send an e-mail.
Window Frost

   The pictures above were sent by David Southwick, who writes: "One of those old-fashioned single-pane windows is my east-facing kitchen window.  As a photographer, my favorite pictures are those with the sun rising behind the frost, creating incredible colors.  The frost on these windows melts nearly every morning soon after sunrise, even during a northern Vermont winter, so each morning brings a new crystalline complex. Sunrise is different each morning, creating a color scheme as varied as the crystals themselves.
   Clif Maloney took the picture at right "... while at the Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois.  The frost formed on single-pane windows on the third floor of a building built in 1867. The windows were about 100 feet above the ground. The temp was -3F.  The pictures were taken with a Nikon digital camera, f2.8 on macro, at about 1/2 inch."
   The frost "spines" you see in this picture probably delineate small streaks or scratches in the glass.  Window frost formations are often strongly influenced by such imperfections, which act as condensation sites.

   You can find more excellent window frost pictures here and here.

Hoarfrost
   John Snell sent the picture at right, showing some large hoarfrost crystals attached to a stalk of grass.  He comments that "the best formed in a low, swampy corner of a field where a lot of water had collected under the snow during the past couple of days.  Night-time temperatures dropped from 40F to 14F and, voila, miracles."

 
   Walter Tape sent this picture of an exceptionally large hoarfrost crystal plucked from a permafrost tunnel near Fairbanks, Alaska.
   Mark Passolt sent this picture from Bergen, Norway.  He comments that "Bergen is on the coast, giving high humidity, and the temperatures are frequently near freezing.  We get lots of frost and have gotten used to seeing large crystals."

 
Frost Flowers
   Frost flowers attracts a lot of attention (and cameras) when they appear.  The above photos were contributed by (from left to right) Bob Bruyn, Vince DiCarlo, and Paul Nickelson.


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SnowCrystals.com was created by Kenneth G. Libbrecht, Caltech
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