Clear ice refers to a solid precipitation which forms when air temperature is between 0 °C (32 °F) and -3 °C (27 °F) and there are supercooled, relatively large drops of water (from freezing fog). A rapid accretion and a slow dissipation of latent heat of fusion favor the formation of a transparent ice coating, without air or other impurities.
A similar phenomenon occurs when freezing rain or drizzle hit a surface and is called glaze.
Clear ice, when formed on the ground, is often called black ice, and can be extremely hazardous.
Clear ice is denser and more homogeneous than hard rime; like rime, however, clear ice accumulates on branches and overhead lines, where it is particularly dangerous due to its relative high density.
Famous quotes containing the words clear and/or ice:
“In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A young person is a person with nothing to learn
One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn . . .
It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first
day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet,
And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn
without running a nail in its feet. . . .
Meanwhile psychologists grow rich
Writing that the young are ones’ should not
undermine the self-confidence of which.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)