Northland Winter Phenomenon – Raining Ice Cubes

I woke last night to what sounded like an igloo had landed on my house. I looked out the back window of our hose and found a large tree branch had broken off, due to the weight of all the ice accumulated over the past few hours.

When the sun came up, I peeked outside and saw what looked like 100 bags of ice cubes had been dumped all over my backyard and patio. What the heck is this? It's like it's raining ice cubes.

This freezing misty, fog, rain, sleet, or whatever it happens to be at any given moment has caused a phenomenon I've never witnessed. It seriously looks like its raining ice cubes. Like the round ones!

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The ice is freezing up around the small branches of my tree. When it gets heavy enough, or there's a gust of wind, the cubes fall down to the ground. It sounds like a little bit of hail, but it's impressive to see how much has landed on the ground (and on our roof).

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I took the garbage out last night and got smoked by one right in the shoulder. Fortunately, we still haven't lost power. As of Friday morning, Minnesota Power reported 31 active outages, affecting hundreds of customers. No doubt due to the heavy ice accumulation on trees.

Temperatures will hover around freezing this weekend, creating more conditions for ice to accumulate. Be careful out there!