1Crystal Clear Frozen Lake
This lake in the High Tatras Mountains of Slovakia is crystal clear, to the point that those walking on it while it’s frozen appear to be magically suspended in air. The video below captures hiker Tomas Nunuk walking on the frozen water. The transparent ice forms due to water content with a high level of purity freezing at a slow rate. Coupled with the beautiful surroundings, the lake seems like a frozen paradise!
2Exploding Water Pipes in Siberia
In January 2015, a Siberian town found itself, quite literally, frozen to the core, after its water main burst amid an ice cold storm. Residents in Dudinka, central Siberia, emerged from their homes after a powerful storm to find their street frozen solid up to their waists. The storm burst several waterpipes in the town, and with temperatures dropping to -40C during the night, the water froze solid in the street.
3Warehouse on Fire Turned into Ice Castle
As of this writing, New York City firefighters continue to battle a seven-alarm fire more than 24 hours after it first broke out at a storage warehouse in the borough of Brooklyn.
Firefighters have been struggling to tame the blaze in the freezing temperatures which have turned the warehouse into an ice castle overnight, with their fire hoses leaving a layer of ice everywhere they spray.
4Frozen Waterfall Climbing
Great FALL of China
Subzero conditions during winter 2014 caused chaos across the world, but in China, adventurers turned the bitter temperatures in a fun pastime.
It was so cold in the Miyun District, Beijing, that a waterfall actually froze solid. The incredible sight has attracted dozens of climbers who, armed with crampons and pickaxes, decided to scale the vast waterfall.
5Frozen Foam At Scottish River
These fluffy discs might look like pancakes, but don’t get the syrup out just yet. A flotilla of mysterious pancake-like discs was spotted in 2014 drifting down the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. However, instead of being made of flour and milk, they’re actually made from frozen ice and foam.
River Dee Trust biologist Jamie Urquhart discovered the pieces of pancake ice floating along the river. The discs are occasionally found in Antarctica or the Baltic Sea, but they’re a highly unusual sight in Scotland. River Dee Trust officers believe that pieces of frozen foam were caught in an eddy, where they swirled around until they formed a disc. “Perhaps each disc grew when smaller pieces of unfrozen foam struck the disk, adhered and then froze in place,” Dee Catchment Outreach Officer Joanna Dick said.
6Frozen Lake Michigan
The first winter storm of 2015 stroke flashbacks of last year’s polar vortex, as it conjures gusting winds, blizzard-worthy snowfall and deathly-low temperatures across much of the country.
The banks of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois were pictured frozen on January 5, just hours before Winter Storm Gorgon’s arrival in the Midwest.
7Car Wheel Icicles
In the frigid lands of the great white north, unusual issues can occur on the roads. I’m talking about the phenomenon of wheel icicles. With half melted droplets of water touchdown on the central hub of a wheel, they’re flung outward in straight strains or curving arcs – one thing that might go completely unnoticed in hotter areas. Here nevertheless, the freezing temperatures help the drops escape and create lengthy icicles radiating from the wheel’s middle and lug nuts. The result’s a ravishing testimony to driving in difficult circumstances.
8Exploding Trees and Frozen Mercury
Siberia isn’t a place many people want to live. Most humans simply aren’t built to withstand its freezing cold, incredibly unpleasant weather, and even those who are often don’t consider themselves fans. But that doesn’t mean cool things can’t happen there.
In Yakutia, located within the Siberian far east, temperatures rest at around minus 35 degrees Celsius (-31 F). At such a low temperature, things don’t always act as you’d expect. When you breathe in Yakutia, instead of the water vapors evaporating, they condense and turn into small ice crystals. Instead of staying stiff and strong, fallen trees explode and emit blue sparks. Even mercury freezes in such cold weather.
9Snow Rollers in Ohio
A strange and rare winter weather marvel appeared overnight during winter 2014 in Eastern states blasted by blustery winds — snow was sculpted into fanciful shapes such as doughnuts and hollow tubes. Known as snow rollers, these delicate formations are as light as meringues and may crumble when touched, but others are icy enough for play.
According to the National Weather Service, snow rollers need just the right combination of light, sticky snow, strong (but not too strong) winds and cold temperatures to form. It’s been about 10 years since snow rollers were reported in western Pennsylvania, but they appeared in near Spokane, Wash., in 2009.
Like a snowball spinning downhill in a cartoon and picking up size, snow rollers grow layer by layer as they’re rolled along by the wind. Sometimes they do roll downhill, but in this case, wind created the mysterious, hollow snow tubes.
10Boiled Water Turned into Snow
How cold was it in the Midwest of the US during winter 2014? Cold enough that when meteorologist Eric Holthaus tossed a pot of boiling water into the air outside his home in Viroqua, Wisconsin, it turned instantly to snow. To be precise, the temperature at the time was minus 21, with a wind chill of minus 51.