"My guess at what made the snowcicles is the temperature was around 30 degrees and the snow very wet. With the strong winds, the snow flakes collected on icecicles forming at the edge of the roof causing the intricate shapes. The colored snowcicle was taken at sunrise the day after the storm and was colored by the bright morning sun. The wind is what caused the two snowcicles to join into one."

UPDATE: I've invited our Facebook Fans to submit their extreme icicle pictures and we've received some great responses. Here are just a few:

ORIGINAL REPORT: AccuWeather.com Photo Gallery user "monroer" (Robert) from Harrington, Delaware uploaded this intriguing photo entitled "Snowsicles" a couple of weeks ago:

The unusually bulbous, opaque icicles stuck in my head and then I saw this AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan Photo from Ed Elliot that looked similar:

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About a week ago, I saw another formation on a photo from Grandfather Mountain on Facebook.

A search for "snowsicles" doesn't bring up much of any use, but it's entirely possible there is a scientific name for these that I don't know. They appear to form ice around groups of snow crystals somehow, which is counter-intuitive because you'd think the water would melt the snow. Like ice on waterfalls (which has flowing water over a long period), these are generally opaque, white in color, whereas general icicles from roofs are mostly clear. Robert also had a closeup photo of red snowsicles, but he didn't say where the color came from.

So how do they form? Robert said in his photo description "Snowcicles forming from wet snow and 30 to 40 mph winds." I guess the winds could be helping to force snow off the roof or blow snow onto the icicles as they are forming, I'm just not sure. And this phenomenon could indeed be unique to wet snow conditions. The vertical drop of the edge of his roof could aid in sliding globs of snow into the icicle machine as well... I wonder if his neighbors had similar formations or not?

By the way, snowsicles by this definition doesn't count snow encased in hoarfrost as shown in this AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan photo or this Photo Gallery pic - there the frost forms on the outside of the icicles like it does on trees or other objects, making them appear to be white.

Have you ever seen a snowsicle? Leave me a Comment below. Got pictures? Upload them to our our Facebook Page or the AccuWeather.com Photo Gallery.

Comments (4): Trent:

I came across some nice snowsicles hanging on the gutter at my house on Beech Mtn. There was 24" of snow on the ground. The air temp was below freezing, but the temp of the roof certainly got hotter. The snow likely melted and started to run off but then froze again in unusual patterns since the air temp was below freezing:

http://photo.accuweather.com/PHOTOGALLERY/Content/SearchResults.aspx?uid=13807

Posted by Trent | February 22, 2010 9:21 PM Tori:

the red is from dirt

Posted by Tori | February 18, 2010 6:41 PM DAVE:

THESE LOOK LIKE ICICLES WITH BOTH FALLING AND/OR BLOWING SNOW STICKING TO THEM..

Posted by DAVE | February 18, 2010 11:36 AM RSR:

I wonder if the red color is setting or rising sun?

Posted by RSR | February 18, 2010 11:26 AM

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