Holy Megacryometeors!

February 15th, 2014 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Here’s some video I took of large ice falling off a 1,500 ft. TV tower I live next to. This happens every few years after a snowstorm, and is mostly due to supercooled cloud water freezing to the tower and support cables (we didn’t have an ice storm…but did have 6 inches of snow). The falling ice sounds a little like a propeller plane coming in to land.

Best watched full-screen, with HD enabled, turn up your sound, and don’t miss the ending.


22 Responses to “Holy Megacryometeors!”

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  1. Did that do any damage to your roof?

    And do keep Gracie inside. Why would she want to go swimming in that slush anyway?

  2. Hops says:

    About 30 years ago, but in July, I went on a climbing trip in Alaska. We camped on the Ruth Glacier, near McKinley/Denali. It snowed for three days, after which we had what the guides called “stereo avalanches” all around us as chunks of ice the size of office buildings fell off mile-high cliffs and vast plumes of snow rolled down the gullies.

    We killed time on avalanche rescue practice, and then skied down the Ruth Glacier.

    I recently saw a picture of the Ruth in Summer. Huge rocks and a lot of mud covered the surface because of the melting of the ice.

  3. Robert Austin says:

    Great video! Some of those long shards appear to “hang glide” over quite a horizontal distance without tumbling. I would like to see a video of their landing to see if any come down like a spear.

  4. Nice. Luckily you weren’t impaled by one of those ice spears and deposited flat on your back in that slush puddle like Charlton Heston as Neville laying in the fountain at the end the Omega Man. The Family, Roy. The Family.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhPOEFnQkw8

    There are not a few people who would have called MUFON to investigate this phenomenon as a close encounter of some kind.

    We have a golden retriever too. They’re great dogs. The best.

  5. SocietalNorm says:

    Does your house insurance company know about this?

    Great video. Thanks.

  6. I’m sure if somebody plots a graph of occurrences, they’ll find a way to blame climate change.

    Barring that, karma, due to “denier proximity”.

  7. RW says:

    Wow. Did you go out expecting to film this or did you just see it start happening and you grabbed the camera?

    • I heard “booms” and finally figured out that our roof was being hit. I’m always checking out the tower anyway, since it tells me about cloud heights, visibility, winds, and immediately saw the ice coming off it.

  8. Stephen Richards says:

    That tower has provided some great entertainment over the past years.

  9. You are right, Stephen! 🙂

  10. Lance says:

    very impressive!

  11. ßri says:

    Amazing how the chunks are light enough to fly around but strong enough not to break up. I fly RC planes maybe an ice plane would be an interesting project.

    ßri

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