Rime

There is a subtle difference between hoarfrost and rime. For the past two weeks we have been so lucky that the temperature at night has been around 0 celcius which is enough to have hoarfrost formation in "selected" microclimate spots (where I had previously learnt that were good for dew formation). For all this time the hoarfrost has been restricted to few centimeters above ground, meaning that to take photo I basically had to crawl around on the ground. Last night a cold fog sank in and this morning we woke up to a cold sunny day with the first rime of the year, not an extensive one but beautiful all the same. Whereas hoarfeost occurs on cold nights with clear sky when water vapour sublimates, rime comes from freezing fog. This morning was spectacular. I was out before sunrise to document last night's magic. Warm clothes, new battery and enough space on the memory card and I took over 500 photos from which I have more or less randomly picked a few to put on my journal today.