Icicle Images: A Cold-Weather Gallery

Three Icicles

icicles with varying ripples — (Image credit: Anthony Chen and Stephen Morris)

Natural Icicles

Rippled icicle on porch — (Image credit: Stephen Morris)

Icicles found in nature share this ripply surface. The ripples have a consistent wavelength of 1 centimeter, and researchers aren't yet sure why.

Distilled Water Icicle

Icicle without ripples — (Image credit: Anthony Chen and Stephen Morris)

A lab-grown icicle about 2 feet (65 cm) long made with distilled water. Without impurities in the water, the icicle is ripple-free.

Slightly Salty Icicle

salty icicle in lab — (Image credit: Anthony Chen and Stephen Morris)

Adding sodium chloride (salt) causes ripples to form on the icicle.

Very Salty Icicle

Icicle with lots of ripples — (Image credit: Anthony Chen and Stephen Morris)

Adding more sodium chloride increases the ripple effect.

Clear Ice

Icicles form on a porch overhang. The physics of icicle formation is complex, according to the University of Toronto's Morris, because the water that forms icicles is supercooled.

Lab Icicle

lab-grown icicle — (Image credit: Stephen Morris)

Supercooled water forms "spongy" ice, so that not all of the water is frozen. Some is quarantined in tiny liquid pockets.

Ice Row

A row of icicles on a fence in Ottawa. These regular icicles form because of the natural instability of a water film on the horizontal edge of the fence, which creates drops a regular distance apart, according to Morris.

Church Icicles

Icicles on a church — (Image credit: Stephen Morris)

Icicles line church eaves in Montreal, Quebec.

Icicle Melt

Melting icicle against blue sky. — (Image credit: Stephen Morris)

A drop of water falls off a melting icicle.

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.