What In The World Are Ice Balls?

Take a close look at the picture above. This was taken a few days ago along the Milwaukee lakefront. You can’t miss the hundreds of snowballs/ice balls along the shore. I was emailed this picture with a question of what all those balls were and how did they get there. Truth be told, I was not sure at first. I had never seen anything like this. I did a little research and found out what they are. There is no meteorological term that I could find. They are simply named” ice balls.” They form along the shorelines of the Great Lakes and oceans. It starts as a chunk of ice that gets rolled over and over again along the shore to create the smooth surface. Think of all the smooth rocks along the Lake Michigan shoreline. The ice balls are smoothed the same way. When a powerful storm like last week’s moves in, it pushes these balls onto the beaches. Very wild. A big thank you to the Gallagher’s for the photo.

In my research I came across a great youtube video that shows ice balls in the water. Take a look.

 

We have got a rather frigid forecast the next few days. I believe this will be the coldest air of the winter. Lows will drop down below zero on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Some locations may drop to double digits below zero. If you don’t like the cold, just wait a few days. A big warm-up moves in this weekend. I think most locations will actually warm above freezing. No big storms this week.

Thanks for reading and congratulations to the world champion Green Bay Packers.

Mark