A rare phenomenon, captured by photographer Mathew Nichols
...Hair Ice is caused by a fungus that lives within the decaying wood, and this fungus "breathes" or releases its spores through the night pushing the moisture harnessed within the wood out of the woods pores, causing it to immediately freeze with contact of the below freezing temperatures. The small hole from which the moisture is released is as thin as a strand of hair, causing the hair-like ice to form.
I... began to take note of the conditions. I wrote in my journal the temperatures, wind-spead, humidity level, and cloud cover present in the hours leading up to my search.
... I also wanted to see it grow.
Equipped with only my cellphone at the time I went out at night when the conditions were projected to be within the "Golden zone" and set up my phone pointed at a fallen alder branch that I had seen it grow on previously, and began to take a timelapse of this incredible phenomenon.
I ran into so many problems with this plan. My phone would get too cold and shut off, the battery would drain too fast, and the lighting was very difficult to make work. So I taped hand warmers to my phone and plugged it into a battery pack, and then used a few lanterns to provide the proper lighting. It took at least a dozen attempts to finally work through all my issues and achieve my goal of a timelapse from start to finish of the formation of hair ice.
Here's a time lapse of the ice forming.
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