The Washington D.C. area is virtually shut down today as we await a winter snowstorm—the federal and local government offices and schools are all closed. With a little extra time on my hands, I was able to go over some of my photos from Monday’s storm and thought I’d post a couple more images from that event, which covered all surfaces, including the pine trees, with a coating of ice.
I find there is a fragile, transitory beauty in these abstract images—an hour later, when the sun’s rays hit the ice, the effect was gone.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Lovely images. Isn’t the ice spectacular when it covers things like that? I took some photos during last year’s ice storms but have not ventured out with my camera much this winter. I keep slipping on my rump and don’t really want to do so with a camera in hand. We are becoming slowly surrounded by thick snow drifts today so I might take my camera out later today when I take the kids out for a stroll.
Great images Mike. How cold did it get for these ice decorations to form?! I feel chilly just looking at them!
Thanks. The temperature was just a little below freezing when I took these shots. If it had been colder, we would have had sleet or snow instead of this kind of freezing rain.
Wow Mike, just wow. I have never seen anything like that in real life and living in Australia, well unless an ice age hits while I’m still alive, I never will. So beautiful.
Thanks, Leanne. We don’t often have storms like this, but in this case the rain gradually turned into freezing rain, encasing everything with a thin coating of ice. Needless to stay, driving was not recommended and walking was equally perilous.
Those are wonderful shots. Does this mean you are becoming a fan of colder weather?
I wouldn’t go quite that far, Lyle. I took these shots from the deck of my suburban townhouse, only a few feet from the warmth of the indoors. I don’t mind the colder weather, actually, and it helps to keep my favorite spots from being crowded with people.
There’s nothing quite like an ice covered landscape in the sunshine. Beautiful but also often very destructive.
It seems like the ice can damage the plants and the weight of the ice and bring down limbs onto power lines (and, of course, ice-covered roads are no fun for driving).
It’s been a long time since I experienced an ice storm like this. The crystalline transformation can be really spectacular, and it’s probably a good thing that the ice usually doesn’t last very long. It seems that the pines are usually the ones that get hit hardest by the sudden extra weight.
Beautiful