30 Photos of Frozen Things: Ice Storms, Lake Michigan and the Polar Vortex

In the first week of January 2014, Arctic air spilled deep into the United States and Canada, and cities from Minnesota to Georgia woke to record-breaking cold. The deep freeze of the polar vortex inspired this gallery of 30 frozen things, from statues and street signs to lighthouses, flowers and a single penny trapped in an icicle.

The 2014 polar vortex cold wave

On 2 January 2014 an Arctic cold front swept across North America just as a sudden stratospheric warming broke up the polar vortex, the pool of frigid air that normally spins over the Arctic. The jet stream dipped far south, and the coldest stretch followed from 5 to 8 January.

• Babbitt, Minnesota, fell to −37 °F (−38 °C) on 6 January, the coldest reading in the country that day.
• Chicago O'Hare hit −16 °F (−27 °C) on 6 January, breaking the old record of −14 °F.
• New York's Central Park dropped to 4 °F and Atlanta to 6 °F on 7 January.
• Winnipeg reached −37 °C, and Toronto −22 °C.

About 91 per cent of the Great Lakes froze over that winter, the second-highest share on record, and the ice did not fully melt until early June. For Chicago, December 2013 to March 2014 was the coldest such period on record. The photographs below come from many places and winters, but they share the same theme: what happens to ordinary things when the temperature collapses.

1–8: Frozen animals, ships and everyday objects

The flash-frozen stream in the forest is a reminder of how fast water can lock in place when it flows into air far below freezing. Smaller objects tell the same story: a coin caught in a growing icicle, a balloon of water turned to a solid ball and a bin sealed under a crust of ice.

9–15: Lake Michigan, Chicago and frozen water

Lake Michigan's lighthouses are among the most famous winter subjects in North America. When gale-driven waves crash against piers in sub-zero air, the spray freezes on contact, and layer upon layer builds into thick ice armour. Photographer Tom Gill's images of these lighthouses are featured in our related article below.

16–22: Cold at home, methane bubbles and frozen seas

Extreme cold reaches into houses and driveways too: cracked windows, frozen pipes and vehicles buried under ice are part of every hard winter.

The bubbles in photo 19 come from Abraham Lake in western Alberta, a reservoir on the North Saskatchewan River created in 1972 by the Bighorn Dam. Decaying plants on the lake bed release methane, which rises and is trapped as the lake freezes, forming stacks of white bubbles just under the clear surface. Mid-January to mid-February is the best time to see them.

23–30: Icy flowers, teardrops and frozen wildlife

Freezing rain creates some of the most delicate ice of all. Rain falls as liquid through a cold layer of air and freezes the moment it touches a branch, bud or petal, sealing it in a clear glaze that magnifies the colour beneath.

How ice transforms familiar things

Most of the scenes in this gallery come down to three kinds of ice. Frost forms when water vapour freezes directly onto a cold surface, outlining every edge in fine crystals, as on the statue at the top. Glaze builds when liquid water, from freezing rain or wave spray, freezes on contact, encasing objects such as lighthouses, signs and flowers. And lake or river ice grows from the surface down, trapping whatever lies within it, from air and methane bubbles to a penny in an icicle.

Explore more: frost in Patrick Hübschmann’s photographs; Slovenia’s documented 2014 ice storm.

Related reading

• A Frozen Channel Between Trees: Reading the Forest-Ice Photographs
• Tom Gill’s Ice-Covered Lake Michigan Lighthouses
• Twenty-Three Waterfall Scenes: Winter Ice and a Mineral Lookalike
• Abraham Lake’s Ice Bubbles: Layers beneath the Surface
• Angela Kelly’s Frozen Bubbles: Ice Crystals, Reflections and Fragile Forms
• Texas Flowers Encased in Ice: Colour beneath a Clear Coating

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