When freezing rain swept over Texas while the plants were still in bloom, it left every flower, leaf and twig sealed inside a clear shell of ice. Red leaves, yellow petals and bare stems kept their colour beneath the glaze, and rows of tiny icicles hung from their tips. These photographs, shared on Imgur by Reddit user ZilchStar, show the strange beauty of an ice storm up close.
How freezing rain coats flowers in ice
An ice storm needs a very particular layering of the atmosphere. High above the ground, snow falls into a layer of warm air and melts into rain. Just above the surface lies a shallow layer of air that is below freezing. The raindrops fall through it too quickly to freeze, so they arrive as supercooled liquid, colder than 0 °C but still water.
The moment those drops touch a cold surface, they freeze. Because they are still liquid when they land, they spread over and hug whatever they hit, building a smooth, transparent coat called glaze ice. Layer after layer, the glaze can grow several centimetres thick. If the freezing layer near the ground is deeper, the drops freeze in mid-air instead and land as sleet, small ice pellets that bounce instead of sticking.
Glaze ice versus frost
Glaze and frost can look similar from a distance, but they form in completely different ways. Frost grows directly from water vapour: on a cold, clear night, vapour deposits onto surfaces below freezing and builds white, feathery crystals without ever becoming liquid. Rime forms when supercooled water droplets freeze quickly in humid, windy weather, giving a solid, icy crust.
Glaze is different because the water lands as liquid rain. That is why the ice in these pictures is glass-clear and the colours of the flowers show straight through it, with each petal appearing to sit inside its own crystal case.
What an ice storm does to plants
The weight of glaze ice is what makes ice storms so destructive. Branches loaded with ice can snap and bring down power lines, and trees are especially vulnerable in winter, when they are dormant and brittle. Pines suffer because their needles collect more ice than the branches can carry. A severe ice storm in February 1994 caused more than one billion dollars of damage across the southern United States.
For flowers the outcome depends on the plant. When plant tissue itself freezes, ice crystals form inside the cells and damage them, which is why tender plants such as tomatoes, beans and peppers wilt after even a light frost, while hardier plants like kale and cabbage shrug it off. Curiously, a coat of ice can sometimes protect plants: as water freezes it releases heat, and farmers spray orchards and crops with water on frosty nights so that the forming ice holds the leaves close to 0 °C. Too much ice, though, simply crushes them under its weight.
Photographing ice-coated flowers
Glaze ice is fleeting. Once the air warms above freezing or the sun comes out, it begins to melt and drip away, sometimes within hours. The best time to photograph it is early, under soft or overcast light, which brings out the colours beneath the ice without harsh glare. A low angle with a darker background makes the clear outlines and icicles stand out. Take care on paths and steps: glaze on the ground is as slick as an ice rink.
Explore more: ice accumulation during Slovenia’s 2014 storm; frost as a different photographic texture.
Related reading
- Nicole Dextras’ IceShifts: Clothing Given a Temporary Form
- Frost Flowers on Lake Ice: A Delicate Surface Pattern
Sources
- Wikipedia: Freezing rain
- Wikipedia: Frost
- Photographs: ZilchStar on Reddit, via imgur.com.
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