Water's Super States: Supercooling

Liquid water turns into solid ice at its freezing point of zero degrees C.

 

Under special conditions, water retains its liquid state even below freezing point. This state is known as supercooled water. Supercooling occurs when the temperature of a liquid drops below freezing point in the absence of seed nuclei required to create the crystal structure for a solid shape.

 

Supercooling is not a laboratory process, but occurs naturally in one of the most commonly observable phenomenon - clouds. The reaction of supercooled clouds with solid surfaces or heat from jet engines creates results in some stunning formations in nature.



Rimed post near Cairn Gorm summit in Scotland.  Compare with the picture below taken in summer.
Rime builds up in clouds when supercooled droplets (liquid water below freezing) carried by the wind impact on any obstacle and immediately freeze.
Photo By: Jim Barton [CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

Cairn Gorm summit in summer
Michael Graham [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons