This is about the hoariest frost I’ve ever seen.* Somewhere beneath the intricate befrosting is a scrubby pine tree.
Hoarfrost is the build up of ornate ice crystals on twigs, tree branches, grass and other vegetation. It’s like the cold weather twin to summertime dew. When the temperature of the air cools to below the dewpoint, you’ll get dew if it’s warm or hoarfrost if it’s cold. Or, more precisely, when the dewpoint is above freezing, the condensation formed when the air temperature is less than the dewpoint will be dew; but when the dewpoint is below freezing, look for the feathers, needles, or spines of hoarfrost.
The word hoarfrost is made from compounding hoar, which means “grey or white haired”, and frost, which means—well—“frost.” And it does look a like hairy white frost, especially when it forms feathery tips.
Hoarfrost is an old word, too. My very large and very heavy Oxford English Dictionary has a 1290 quote from an English legend that says, “De hore-forst cometh wane it is so cold it froeseth a-nygt…” You’ll find it used in the Cloverdale Bible (1535), in Psalm 147:16:
He geuth snowe like woll, & scatereth y horefrost like ashes.
The King James version used hoarfrost in that verse as well, and the recent English Standard Version says this:
He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
And there you have it, the last word on hoarfrost: It is God who scatters it and turns scraggly scrubs into a bejewelled beauties.
*Photo by oldest son, taken last year while caribou hunting up the Dempster Highway. It’s the Ogilvie range you see in the background. That’s typical winter light, since the sun always stays low on the horizon.