Icy daggers
It’s a bitterly cold winter day. Snow lies in a great white sheet on the
ground and on the roof of your house. The roof is warm from the heat
inside the house, so the snow on the roof is slowly melting. Tiny
trickles of water run to the edge of the roof. Drops of water begin to
form.
Some of the drops grow bigger and fall to the ground. But many of the
drops freeze in the cold air. They become bits of ice hanging along the
edge of the roof. The water trickling off the roof runs onto the ice.
The bits of ice get thicker and longer as more and more water freezes on
them.
All day long, water trickles down the pieces of ice. Water drops form at
the end of each piece of ice. The drops hang there for a moment. Before
they can fall off, they freeze. Slowly, the pieces of ice become the
long daggers we call icicles.
Icicles can be short or long, thin or fat. It depends on how much snow
melts and how fast the water drips from a roof or tree branch. An icicle
can be shorter than your little finger or as long as your whole body.
