Candle Ice on Lake Michigan

Posted on by farlane

Yesterday my photos and videos of an odd phenomenon on the Lake Michigan shore in Leelanau County got featured by Tanda Gimter on mLive who writes in part:

…some of the ice-crystal creations that suddenly appeared on a Leelanau County beach last weekend had photographers excited about their find – and a little baffled. The large, column-like crystals spread out on the ground like blooming flowers.

When you touched the hand-high columns, they broke apart easily.

“It was just kind of a weird day,” said Andrew McFarlane of Leland, who works in web development and marketing. He took pictures and a couple videos of the phenomenon while he was at Van’s Beach in Leland on Sunday. “I’ve never seen it before that I can remember.”

As regular readers know, I’m not one to let a Michigan mystery alone, and after some research I’m pretty confident that this is called “candle ice”. The American Meteorological Society defines it as: A form of rotten ice; disintegrating sea ice (or lake ice) consisting of ice prisms or cylinders oriented perpendicular to the original ice surface; these “ice fingers” may be equal in length to the thickness of the original ice before its disintegration.

Here’s a video of it!

9 thoughts on “Candle Ice on Lake Michigan”

  6. I’ve seen it before on a cove on Whitefish Bay off Lake Superior. Its part of the process of slow melting ice. I saw it while it was still in small masses. It was at a State Forest Day Use area. I could hear the tinkling of crystal as I approached the beach. Absolutely amazing. There were little icebergs of it. 2-3″ thick. The next day the day was clear, calm waters.

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  7. Pingback: Candle Ice on Lake Michigan — Michigan in Pictures | ravenhawks' magazine

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