frozen

Winter has arrived. The temperatures have plummeted to the single digits and even to negative numbers this past week.  The still silence is broken by the chattering of our teeth whenever we are outdoors.

The littles ones are trained.  When someone says, “it is so cold out,” their response “welcome to Alaska!”

There is an amazing beauty to this season, the sparkling white covered trees. It is called hoarfrost.

HOARFROST: deposit of ice crystals on objects exposed to the free air, such as grass blades, tree branches, or leaves. It is formed by direct condensation of water vapour to ice at temperatures below freezing and occurs when air is brought to its frost point by cooling. Hoarfrost is formed by a process analogous to that by which dew is formed on similar objects, except that, in the case of dew, the saturation point of the air mass is above freezing. The occurrence of temperatures below 0° C (32° F) is not enough to guarantee the formation of hoarfrost. Additionally, the air must be initially damp enough so that when cooled it reaches saturation, and any additional cooling will cause condensation to occur. In the absence of sufficient moisture, hoarfrost does not form, but the water in the tissues of plants may freeze, producing the condition known as black frost.  — ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA

The forecast for the rest of the week has a high of 13 F with snow showers and freezing rain during the beginning of next week.  We continue to adapt to the climate change from the sunny desert of El Paso, TX.