More Springtime Snow

Snow continued to fall overnight, accumulating do a depth of about an inch, coating the spring flowers with crystals. The morning sun revealed nature's gentle touch.

Amazing Water

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Water. It is basic to life as we know it. We drink it, bathe in it, cook with it. But left to its own devices, aided by cold temperatures, variable humidity and wind, water crystallizes into amazing shapes. Seen here up close is snow after it sat for a while in such conditions.

Snow falls in many places. To most of us, snow is just part of the background. Something pretty on the trees; something to plow from the roadway, shovel out of the driveway, or ball up and throw at someone. But in nature, the closer we look, the more interesting things get.

Patterns on the Surface of the Ice

Ice crystal forms shape the surface of a puddle. Just outside the focal field, sunlight scatters off the facets.

Remnants of a Colorful Autumn

Amid the snow and ice remain a few splashes of color, holdouts from the autumn that wouldn't let go.


Tiny ice crystals adorn these tiny red leaves, gently illuminated by the rising sun.
No, this picture is not sideways - the plant was leaning.


A pair of yellow leaves battered but still clinging to their mother branch.

White Crystalline Fur

As the temperatures sink into the 20s, snow that had fallen over the previous day serves as a substrate for crystal growth.


Water molecules in the air settle on the exposed ice surfaces, extending the existing crystals into this furry configuration.


Close up, the individual crystals appear as individual towers of ice.

Nature's Wonder

Throughout the natural world, many shapes are found again and again in different contexts. We see circles, ellipses, spirals, waves, lines, polygons, and many other shapes at various levels of complexity.


Here we have what appear to be feathers similar to those found on birds, but in this case, made entirely of ice, formed spontaneously over the top of a wet spot of ground. As the temperature dropped, the water feeding this puddle slowed, lowering its level. Molecule by molecule, water evaporated from the top of the lowered puddle and condensed on the crystals that had already begun to form on the earlier surface of the puddle, arranging themselves in this pattern.

After the Fall

It's still officially Autumn but already the snow from the first winter storm of the season is melting away. A winged seed pod still hangs from a Japanese Maple tree that only a few weeks ago was in the midst of a spectacular color show.


Trapped beneath the ice crust on a frozen puddle, a fallen maple leaf peers up at the rising sunlight.