Ten Unusual Natural Phenomena: Storms, Ice, Light and Rock

Pointed snow forms and delicate ribbons of ice look as though they were carefully sculpted. Their shapes show why an unusual natural phenomenon deserves an explanation more than an alarming caption.

Compare the scale and the material

Penitentes are elongated formations associated with the uneven ablation of snow or ice. The much smaller ribbons sometimes called frost flowers around plant stems belong to a different process, involving water freezing as it emerges. They should not be treated as miniature versions of the same landform.

Storms, optical effects and rock columns involve very different processes. These ten examples invite a useful question: what material is changing, and what process is shaping it? Similar-looking forms need not share an origin.

Explore more: snow-crystal structure under magnification; snow deforming on a roof.

1. Supercells: a storm is more than its outline

A supercell is a thunderstorm associated with a persistent rotating updraft. It can produce severe weather, although not every supercell produces a tornado. A dramatic cloud photograph may convey its scale, but cannot establish the storm’s movement or the warnings in force. Decisions during an approaching storm need current local alerts and appropriate shelter; the apparent direction of a cloud in a photograph provides no useful escape plan.

2. Penitentes: uneven loss shapes the snow

Penitentes are pointed forms sculpted into snow and ice by uneven ablation. Closely spaced blades create a field that can look almost architectural, with narrow hollows between higher ridges. Their unusual appearance comes from differences in how the surface loses material. Compare their scale and repeated outlines with the much smaller ribbons of ice around plant material later in the collection. Scale separates several examples: a formation occupying a mountainside and one wrapped around a plant stem belong to very different views of the natural world.

3. Brinicles: ice grows around descending brine

When sea ice forms, concentrated salty liquid can drain from it. Descending cold brine can cause surrounding seawater to freeze, producing the tube-like structure known as a brinicle. It is not an ordinary icicle hanging in air: the surrounding medium is seawater. That difference is essential to understanding why a familiar-looking shape belongs to a very different environment.

4. Volcanic lightning: an eruption plume can become electrified

Lightning can occur within a volcanic plume, rather than requiring an unrelated thunderstorm to arrive during an eruption. Charge separation within the eruptive environment is part of the process; a simple picture of positive debris meeting negative air cannot explain every discharge. The photograph documents a striking interaction between an eruption and electricity.

5. Circumhorizontal arcs: neither fire nor an ordinary rainbow

The nickname fire rainbow can obscure what the image shows. A circumhorizontal arc is an ice-crystal optical phenomenon associated with a high Sun. Its colours belong to redirected sunlight, not burning cloud. The descriptive name helps distinguish it from a rain shower’s rainbow and from other coloured cloud effects that can look similar in a photograph.

6. Sun dogs: bright companions to the Sun

Sun dogs are bright patches associated with sunlight interacting with atmospheric ice crystals. Their position relative to the Sun is part of their identity. They do not physically circle it or create additional suns. Comparing them with the circumhorizontal arc makes this pair of photographs useful: both involve ice and light, yet their geometry in the observer’s sky is different.

7. Waterspouts: two broad categories matter

The National Weather Service distinguishes fair-weather waterspouts from tornadic waterspouts. The latter are tornadoes over water and are associated with severe thunderstorms; fair-weather waterspouts develop differently. Neither label should encourage a boat to approach. Some waterspouts can cause harm on reaching shore, so being on land does not by itself remove the risk.

8. Snow rollers: a rolled form, not a carved one

The snow-doughnut image belongs to the family of snow rollers. Its outline suggests accumulated layers rolled together rather than a solid ball shaped by hand. Snow can move under wind or gravity and collect more material as it rolls. It is useful to look for that layered form, while recognising that the photograph alone cannot reconstruct the exact conditions that made one example.

9. Columnar basalt: rock divided by cooling

The geometric columns form as cooling volcanic rock contracts and fractures. Their shapes can look deliberately constructed, but repeated joints give the rock that patterned appearance. The orientation of the cooling surfaces helps explain the direction of the columns; the direction of lava flow alone does not. Compare the rigid columns with the flexible-looking snow and ice forms elsewhere in the gallery.

10. Ice ribbons around plants

The final image shows delicate ice forming around plant material as water emerges and freezes. The result can resemble petals, which explains the informal flower comparison. These are not snowflakes that have grown into a plant shape, and they are not small penitentes. The full collection becomes more informative when each form is connected to its own material and process rather than grouped only by how surprising it looks.