My friend Pamela sent me this picture of a tree in her yard. That morning, low clouds covered their area, but no snowfall occurred. You can imagine her surprise and delight when she looked out and saw this beautiful “snow covered” tree when there was no snow! It reminded her of the Christmas trees with flocking on them.
Turns out there is something called Rime ice, which coats trees with ice droplets from fog, often on a mountain ridge. A friend in Colorado told me about this phenomenon when I showed him this picture of Pamela’s tree.
Rime ice occurs with fog, cold temperatures and high altitude. Hard rime is a white ice with a “comb like” appearance, and soft rime has a more feathery appearance. Meteorologists have a number of fine distinctions beyond these — mostly related to how the ice forms and under what conditions.
For the rest of us, here’s to simply enjoying the beauty of a snowy tree in the midst of a snow-free landscape on a winter day.