See it: Melting ice looks like wiggling worms
Warming temperatures in southern Ontario last week caused ice to melt in Mississauga, Ontario, creating a neat effect.
In the video above, which was sent in by a Weather Network viewer, water running under a layer of ice creates an interesting visual effect.
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This can sometimes be observed on rivers, lakes and ponds, where flowing water can be seen under a layer of ice. In those instances, a lot of things can be at play. Temperature differences between the surface and the bottom of the water, wind, the direction of currents and exterior temperatures combine in special ways to create the effect on bodies of water.
MELTING ICE CREATES 'LAVA LAMP' TREE
In April 2018, we were sent a similar video from a viewer in Quebec, where warming temperatures caused water to flow under a sheet of ice around a tree.
Check it out here:
At the time, Weather Network meteorologists Brett Soderholm and Tyler Hamilton said they'd never seen anything like the 'bubble' effect created by the water flowing through the tree.
"It's hard to say exactly what's happening here without seeing the tree in person, but it's clear to me that water is flowing down the tree between the tree's exterior and a layer of ice," Soderholm said at the time. "This initially appears counter-intuitive, but it is possible given a sufficiently thick layer of ice."
Here's Soderholm's best guess as to what happened:
"At some point, the interior temperature of the tree warmed up, causing it to slightly expand," he says.
"Later, the exterior temperature dropped and a layer of freezing rain coated the windward side of the tree in ice. Over time, this layer of ice would cause the internal temperature of the tree to cool, forcing it to contract -- but, if this layer of ice were sufficiently thick, a thin gap between the tree and the ice may have been created."
Then, a subsequent increase in temperature likely caused some of the ice to begin melting and flow as water through the small gap.