Winter Banter 24-25

[LibertyBell]

Onto something mysterious, giant chunks of ice falling from a clear blue sky in Florida

 

https://nypost.com/2025/02/05/us-news/massive-chunk-of-ice-falls-from-the-sky-pierces-roof-of-florida-home-and-no-ones-sure-where-it-came-from/

 

There's probably a simple explanation for this like it falling from a plane, but accounts of huge chunks of ice falling from a clear sky predate the existence of air planes. They're called megaicycryometeors.

 

https://www.wwnytv.com/2025/02/05/large-chunk-ice-falls-sky-crashes-into-roof-this-is-first/

 

The homeowners say they’re thankful they weren’t home at the time.

“When something occurs, what the potential life threat could be is what we’re kind of looking at,” Berryhill added. “And in this situation, a large object falling from the sky is going to gain speed fast. It’s going to cause tremendous bodily harm or possibly even death.”

The FAA has not yet determined the source of the falling ice.

 

https://www.wptv.com/news/state/large-chunk-of-ice-falls-from-sky-smashes-through-roof-of-home-in-palm-coast#:~:text=In past incidents%2C falling ice,formation of "blue ice."

 

The ice chunks that are connected to aircraft are *blue ice* (some chemicals must be mixed in to make it blue), but the ones not linked to aircraft have no color.

 

Authorities are still investigating the source of the ice. In past incidents, falling ice chunks have been linked to aircraft. Ice can accumulate on planes at high altitudes and break away as they descend into warmer air. Additionally, while aircraft are not permitted to eject waste mid-flight, leaks can occur, leading to the formation of "blue ice."

[LibertyBell]

https://skybrary.aero/articles/megacryometeor

 

Description

A megacryometeor is a very large chunk of ice which, despite sharing many textural, hydro-chemical, and isotopic features found in large hailstones, is formed under unusual atmospheric conditions which clearly differ from those of the cumulonimbus cloud scenario (i.e clear sky conditions). They are sometimes called huge hailstones, but unlike hailstones do not need to form under thunderstorm conditions.

Mass and size

More than 50 megacryometeors have been recorded since 2000. They vary in mass between 0.5 Kg to several tens of kilograms. One in Brazil weighed in at more than 50 Kg.

Formation

The process that creates megacryometeors is not completely understood yet, mainly with respect to the atmospheric dynamics necessary to produce them. They may have a similar mechanism of formation that which leads to the formation of hailstones. Scientific studies show that their composition matches normal tropospheric rainwater for the areas in which they fall. In addition, megacryometeors also display textural variations of the ice surface and hydro-chemical and isotopic heterogeneity in its composition, which gives potential evidence to a complex formation process in the lower atmosphere. It is known that they do not form from airplane toilet leakage because the large chunks of ice that occasionally do fall from airliners are distinctly blue due to the disinfectant use by them (hence the common term "blue ice").

Some have speculated that these ice chunks must have fallen from aircraft fuselages after plain water ice accumulating on those aircraft through normal atmospheric conditions has simply broken loose. However, similar events also occurred prior to the invention of aircraft. Studies show that meteorological fluctuations in tropopause, associated with hydration of the lower stratosphere and stratospheric cooling, can be related to their formation. A detailed micro-Ramen spectroscopic study made it possible to place the formation of the megacryometeors within a particular range of temperatures: -10 to -20 C. They are sometimes confused with meteors because they leave small impact craters, though they form in the atmosphere and not outer space.

[LibertyBell]

https://www.damninteresting.com/the-peculiar-phenomenon-of-megacryometeors/

 

Over the past decade, over fifty such objects have been recorded worldwide. Some have been as small as about one pound, but one monstrous mass of ice that fell in Brazil weighed about 400 pounds⁠— almost a quarter of a ton⁠— and crashed through the roof of a Mercedes-Benz factory. One recently made headlines in Oakland, California, weighing over 200 pounds and creating a dent in the Earth three feet deep. A similar event occurred in Chicago last February, crashing through the roof of a house.

Martínez-Frías led the research on the objects in Spain, examining the ice and impact sites from multiple megacryometeors. The ice was found to be free of urine, feces, and disinfecting solutions, so it was determined that its source was not an airplane’s frozen waste water. In fact, at the times of several of the events, the official records of air traffic control showed no airplanes in the skies over the areas in question. The makeup of the ice was vastly different from that of comets, so an extraterrestrial original was ruled out. But the composition of the frozen water did bear a very striking resemblance to that of a well-known weather phenomenon: hail.

A possible megacryometeor which hit a Chicago home in February 2006

The mysterious ice blobs, like hail, have been found to contain air bubbles, onion-like layering, and traces of ammonia and silica. The icy objects also have isotopic distributions of oxygen-18 and deuterium similar to those found in hailstones. Aside from their surprising mass and their tendency to plunge one-at-a-time from clear skies, the ice balls are almost identical to hail. Adding further intrigue to the investigation, it was discovered that there were several peculiar conditions in the high atmosphere over Spain that day: ozone levels were lower than normal, causing the troposphere to be particularly warm and the stratosphere to be particularly cold… also, the lower stratosphere was more humid than usual, and there was strong wind shear in the upper atmosphere.

https://medium.com/galileos-doughnuts/megacryometeor-madness-dc13ced28ee5

 

Since 2000, there have been 50 recorded megacryometeor falls. The smallest was around half a kilogram, whilst the biggest, which fell in Brazil and partially wrecked a factory, weighed in at an impressive 50 kilograms.

Analysis on recovered megacryometeors show that they form within a range of temperatures from -10°C to -20°C and that they seem to share the onion like layering associated with more traditional hailstones. When the megacryometeors from Spain were analysed, the results suggested that the ice had formed high up in the upper troposphere. Further atmospheric research using data from NASA showed that a thin jet of ozone depression passed through the areas in Spain where the ice falls took place, causing the troposphere to be warmer than normal and the stratosphere to be cooler and more humid than normal, as well as a particularly strong wind shear in the upper atmosphere.

Megacryometeor falls have been recorded since the early 19th century, but the apparent frequency appears to be increasing over the last 50 years. It has been postulated that this may be a symptom of climate change, but there is no strong evidence either way. Documented megacryometeors that have fallen from clear skies include 1829 in Córdoba, Spain, with a 2 kg ball of ice and in 1851 in New Hampshire which recorded a 1kg megacryometeor. More recent cases include a 9 kg fall in Batley, West Yorkshire in 1991, and probably the best documented UK fall of a megacryometeor was on 2nd April, 1973, in Manchester. The block weighed 2 kg and consisted of 51 layers of ice. Its origin was not determined.