Mother nature provided an April’s Fool joke this morning. Daffodils and other early bulb flowers should be displaying bright colors but instead the trees are rattling with a new layer of ice and the gusty winds are blowing snowflakes around.
So for all the people who keep telling me spring is coming, the joke is on us as winter has latched on with mighty grips and is not letting go.
Nature’s Joke
Another month is ending and I haven’t decided if March is going out like a lion or a lamb. It definitely came in like a lion but today it is actually warm enough for rain at the moment so could be a lamb. But the ground is still buried under snow and the rain is supposed to switch to snow later tonight so doesn’t seem to lamb like to me. And some areas are being impacted with a blizzard so March is going out for a lion for them.
End of March
Spring may officially be here but winter is still hanging on with lows around zero again tonight.
Still Hanging On
I’m glad the predicted sleet and freezing rain missed my area since I don’t like ice unless it is used to cool a drink on a hot summer day like a snow cone or when ice is creating unique formations in ice caves. There is beauty in the ice caves but not when ice is coating the roads or my sidewalk.
Narrow Icy Cave
I imagine there will be a large number of visitors at the Lake Superior ice caves this weekend since it is the last weekend they will be open this year as the ice is thinning and the ice formations are beginning to fall. Soon these big ice chunks will melt and will become part of Lake Superior waves that will etch out more sea caves.
Icy Falls
The snow is shrinking down and melting a little with the recent few days above freezing but the landscape is still mostly white. And while some rivers and streams may continue to flow all winter, some are flowing under a layer of ice and you may only hear the small waterfalls until they poke out in the spring again.
Icy River
All good things must come to an end. The Lake Superior ice caves will close after Sunday or sooner if the ice condition deteriorate rapidly this week. Nature provided a spectacular show this cold winter and it may not return in the upcoming years since it was five years since the last time the ice was stable to walk on to see. But while the ice caves will return to sea caves as the ice melts, nature will create another glorious show as wildflowers will add color to the landscape once all the snow is melted.
The End of Nature’s Ice Show
Since the weatherman mentioned snow and sleet in the forecast for today, that made me a little blue and so I thought I would post more of the blue ice. I wondered why the ice in that area was more compact than the surrounding area to make it look blue. Maybe it heard spring will arrive some day and it would disappear and be forgotten and the ice was sad too.
Blue Ice
Besides the ice caves on the shore of Lake Superior, there were frozen water falls to view which might just be a little a wet trickle in the summer but it creates a large frozen falls in the winter.
The ice also appears different colors, like the yellow or pink, which picks up sand grains from the sandstone. And then in certain spots you can find blue ice, which is caused by how light is absorbed in the snow and ice and the difference in wavelength from the red spectrum to the blue. Water and ice behaves like a blue filter, which absorbs the reds and orange, and why deeper water appears blue.
Snow is composed of a bunch of ice grains with air in between them and almost all of the visible light striking the snow is reflected back and appears white. But in ice, there is less air and so fewer opportunities for light to scatter back out and light travels farther into the ice and gives the ice more time to absorb the red light so when the light returns to the surface, it is lacking red light, making it appear blue.
Colorful Ice
Massive ice columns can be found on south shore of Lake Superior and inside this column was running water. Although the ice had the flowing water hidden, it could be heard. And that wasn’t such a good thing listening to flowing water in the cold temperature since it was several miles back to a port-a-potty!
Flowing Column
