Weather words
What is hoarfrost?
Hoarfrost: the cold doing arts and crafts overnight.
Feathery white ice crystals that grow on cold surfaces on a clear, still night.
Get roasted by your own forecastFree, no account, and you pick how rude I get.
“Everything’s white with hoarfrost this morning.”
More about hoarfrost
Hoarfrost forms when water vapour turns straight into ice on a surface that is below freezing, with no liquid stage in between. It grows into spiky, fern-like crystals on twigs, grass and fences.
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Where the word comes from
Hoar is an old English word for grey-white, as in hoary.
What I think of hoarfrost
Hoarfrost: the cold doing arts and crafts overnight.
Hoarfrost makes a freezing morning look expensive.
Hoarfrost is the one kind of frost worth getting up early for.
Words people compare it with
- Rime: White ice that coats surfaces when freezing fog or cloud droplets hit them.
- Crisp: Cool, dry and clear, with fresh air that feels clean to breathe.
- Frigid: Extremely cold: bitter, biting cold, well below freezing.
- All weather words