Can you say flash freeze?

Southeast Missouri experienced what local meteorologists called a "flash freeze" Dec. 22, 2022. Normally, the term flash freeze is used in the food industry where foods are frozen solid in a very short time.

A fast-moving cold front pushed its way through the area, delivering rain followed quickly by plummeting temperatures and light snow. Overnight temperatures fell to below zero and persisted well into the next day.

The morning of Dec. 23, 2022, I went to a favorite pond for a short time and photographed what was a new kind of frost for me. Constant wind kept snow from collecting on the new ice forming on the pond surface. But somehow frost had formed on the smooth surface of the ice where no protruding object existed. I observed hundreds of such frost formations like the one shown here. They were about a half-inch tall and looked like small dainty feathers sticking out of tiny ice crystals. Many of them looked like little disasters with tiny ice crystals strewn about. My research did not conclusively name these frost formations.