The cooler weather continues unabated and that has all us locals smiling once again although we would sure like to see more snow…as in a few feet more!  Still and all its been wonderful to feel the cold once more.  With this recent streak of cooler temps – this morning was the first below zero temp I’ve recorded since December 27th’s -15.7 F and that makes 40 contiguous days across one of the two coldest months in Talkeetna – has come clear weather and heavy morning frost.  I thought I’d seen ‘heavy’ frost in the lower 48 but once again Alaska has trumped my previous perceptions.  We’ve seen eight straight days of clear weather and each day the frost has grown more and more mainly because daytime temps have remained in the teens with night-time lows slowly dropping from the single digits to around 0 F.  As this occurs the frost builds across the days to form some amazing structures as evidenced by the following images:

Ice crystal formation on the railing of my back porch

A screw on my back porch railing pushed up by the repeated freeze/thaw cycles

A frost sheathed small tree in my back yard

The build up of frost can and does produce beauty equivalent to the aftermath of an ice storm but without all the resultant damage.  It’s especially pretty in the sunlight.  In the lower 48 the sun would normally melt off any frost but its been cold enough recently and the sun remains at a low enough angle that this hasn’t happened.  Given we’re forecast to remain a bit cooler than normal across the next seven days there’s little doubt the frost will continue to grown with the passing days.  Once more my new home both surprises me and amazes me with its unexpected beauty!