Hair Ice
January 25, 2010
Via Suzanne, this post on BoingBoing about hair ice.
While the term frost is used frequently as part of such names, these ice formations are not a product of frost. Frost comes about by moisture from the air being deposited on surfaces. As such frost is quite amorphous and would never appear as fine needles like we see here. Hair Ice is ice that grows outward from the surface of the wood, as super-cooled water emerges from the wood, freezes and adds to the hairs from the base.