The early bud catches the snow

These buds and leaves were sticking out of a snow-covered bush the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 25. Heavy, wet snowfall during the night broke down some trees and tree limbs in the Southeast Missouri area. Thousands of people were left to deal with a few days of no electric power.

Temperatures rose above freezing quickly that morning, and the 5 or so inches of snow began to melt quickly. When I found this bush, which had a myriad of small tangled limbs, it was loaded with melting snow. You can see in my photo that the snow on the pink buds looks more like ice than snow. When snow melts like this, the flakes on top turn to water and run slowly into the flakes below turning them into ice crystals before they all melt away. This may take several minutes depending on how quickly the temperature rises.

In this case I arrived at the right time.