Most of us would like to travel to places in winter because we all think that the experience of snowing is very special, and there are many beautiful phenomena that can only be experienced in winter. While some people don’t like to travel to cold places because they don’t like cold weather, and they also think that winter clothes and items need to be prepared for travel to these countries, which is a very troublesome process, plus travel to places in winter usually expensive. However, if you have the opportunity, you should travel to countries with winter and experience these natural phenomena that can only be experienced in winter. But for the danger signs mentioned below, it is better to be careful about them.
▼ Diamond Dust
When the air temperature near the ground at higher altitudes is low and cold, and sparkling ice crystals are produced in the air, this phenomenon is “diamond dust.” They will look like needles, columns, or plates, and look like fog, but they will glow in the sun. They are different from snow because they fall from a cloudless sky and float in the air. They are common in the Antarctic and Arctic, but can also be seen in nearby countries. They may appear for a few days, but never appear for a long time.
▼ Thundersnow
When the warm air rises and faces the cold air above, this creates a “thundersnow”. They are formed because electric charge separation occurs when hot and cold air rubs, and unstable electric charges cause lightning strikes and thunder. They may be similar to ordinary thunder and lightning, but the difference is that the air near the ground is warm enough to rise, and cold enough to not turn falling snow into rain.
▼ Snow Squall
They seem to be in a blizzard, but the blizzard may last for several days, and the snow squall is heavier and is a short-term strong wind storm. They occur because of the accumulation of snow and the movement of the wind, which creates fog. Driving in this phenomenon is very dangerous.
▼ Snow Rollers
This is a very rare phenomenon, because it requires a combination of conditions to occur, that is, the snow must be sufficiently sticky, but light enough to not stick to the surface, and strong winds must be able to curl the snow, but enough soft and don’t blow the snow away. In these cases, they will form a huge cylinder made of snow, curling due to the push of wind and the action of gravity.
▼ Sundog
This phenomenon also requires a combination of multiple conditions to produce such an illusion. Its official name is “Parhelion”, which is the result of light reflecting from tiny hexagonal ice crystal clouds in the high atmosphere. They are like a rainbow. The light shines on the ice and breaks down into the colors of the rainbow. The crystals will slowly fall and float in the air, and then you can see their reflections at eye level. The faint light from each crystal will gather together to create a fake sunlight.
▼ Ice Fog
This phenomenon will only happen when the temperature is lower than 30 degrees Celsius. The ice fog will be like the sun illusion, will produce the “sun halo” effect. Ice fog is not composed of dense water droplets like ordinary fog, but is composed of dense frozen crystals of 12 to 20 microns.
▼ Nieve Penitente
These are natural snow towers a few inches in height. They are usually formed at higher altitudes, when ice does not change to water, but directly changes from solid to gas. This is because the sun warms the ice faster than it turns ice, causing it to become faster and look like clusters of pillars pointing towards the sky. They only existed on Earth before, but in 2017, astronomers discovered signs of snow and nieve penitente on Pluto.
▼ Snownado
Snownado are also called “snow devils”. Like tornadoes, they spin the wind pillars, but they rotate with the snow. The difference from tornadoes is that snow tornadoes do not require hot ground to occur. This phenomenon is also very rare, as only six snowstorms have been videotaped only through 2016.
▼ Bombogenesis
Bombogenesis represents a severe winter storm. It occurs at the moment when the air pressure of a mid-latitude cyclone rises rapidly and needs to drop at least 24 millibars (millibars, the metric unit of air pressure) in a day. Bombogenesis can produce explosive cyclones, that is, the lower the pressure of a strong winter hurricane drops, the stronger the storm.
▼ Frost Quakes
They are also called “Cryoseism”. Although they are a kind of earthquake, they are usually very stable and you can’t feel it at all. They occur due to sudden deep freezing of the ground and are common when the weather becomes cold for the first time in a year. Snow helps to insulate the ground, but when there is no snow on the ground and the temperature drops from freezing to below zero, this can cause frost quakes.
