hoarfrost

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hoarfrost:

see frostfrost
or hoarfrost,
ice formed by the condensation of atmospheric water vapor on a surface when the temperature of the surface is below 32°F; (0°C;). In the formation of frost, a gas (water vapor) is changed directly to a solid (see dew).
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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Hoarfrost

ice crystals that form on surfaces on cold, clear, still nights. The particles of hoarfrost are similar in shape to snowflakes but are less regular. Like dew, hoarfrost forms because of the cooling of the surface of the earth as a result of thermal radiation, which causes a drop in the temperature of the adjacent layers of air and the sublimation of the water vapor on the surface, which is cooled below 0°C.

hoarfrost

[′hȯr‚frȯst]

(hydrology)

A deposit of interlocking ice crystals formed by direct sublimation on objects. Also known as white frost.

hoarfrost

a deposit of needle-like ice crystals formed on the ground by direct condensation at temperatures below freezing point

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

Instead, we have had a hoarfrost covering the trees and ground with a glistening white coating.

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twisted with hoarfrost and mold chokes a stick to look like an old

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Whenever there is one grain of corn in it, the coming year will be fruitful; but if there is 'hoarfrost and snow' there will be calamities (Pelliot 1963: 700f.)

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Kozyrev reasoned, that the polar cap observed in 1956 was an atmospheric formation, similar to "hoarfrost in air".

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It was during the same winter that I remember finding the windowpanes of the rectory doors covered with hoarfrost, and being fascinated by the needles and crystalline forms in this, and how I could melt some of the frost with my breath and make a little peephole.

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The haunting moments of presence, not to say beauty, he conjured in the succeeding series "Early Egyptian," 1973-74, "Hoarfrost," 1974-76, and "Jammer," 1975-76, kept faith with the humble and discarded.

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The five of us hiked downward in knee-deep snow into the bowl-shaped valley, then passed through a thicket of royal azalea and Mongolia oak heavy with hoarfrost and last night's snowfall.

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Here, I saw circles of hoarfrost and leaves tinged with their own temporary tinsel.

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branches and twigs coated with hoarfrost, resembles

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I saw long stretches of snow-packed highway, trees laced with hoarfrost and watched temperatures dip below -30 degrees.

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In the poem, "hoar pine" refers to a pine that is covered with silvery, frozen dew or "hoarfrost." The tamarack is a lodgepole pine, and spruce and mountain hemlock are also trees that grow in the Eastern Sierra.

Mary Austin and Andrew Forbes: poetry, photography, and the Eastern Sierra

For a moment he feels a freezing chill on his lips as if the needles of mentholated hoarfrost settled on his tongue, lips, and palate.