frost

frost, atmospheric moisture directly crystallized on the ground and on exposed objects. The term also refers to the occurrence of subfreezing temperatures that affect plants and crops.

Frost crystals, often called hoarfrost in the aggregate, form when the invisible water vapour of the atmosphere passes into the ice crystal phase without going through the intermediate liquid phase. Hoarfrost lightly covers fields and rooftops under conditions that would form dew if the temperature were above freezing at the point of formation. Sometimes the freezing temperature will be reached after dew has already formed, producing frozen dew, but this usually cannot be readily distinguished, because crystals ordinarily will start forming at about the same time the freezing starts.

The crystalline and other forms of frost deposit are a subject of aesthetic as well as scientific interest. The structures differ in some respects from those of snow. Granular forms are called rime and are produced by the freezing of droplets of liquid water (technically called supercooled droplets) that are carried in the air at temperatures below freezing. Rime is best developed on mountaintops enveloped in supercooled clouds. It is a common form of icing on aircraft. It also occurs in steam fogs around open springs, streams, lakes, or ponds in very cold weather and, in extreme conditions, around chimneys from the water vapour condensed in the flue gases.

True crystalline hoarfrost is of two classes, one of which assumes columnar forms and the other of which assumes tabular, or platelike, forms. Generally, the crystals of these two classes do not occur together on a single night; rather, one or the other will greatly predominate. Columnar or needlelike forms are found at the higher subfreezing temperatures, whereas plate crystals predominate under colder conditions. In their pristine state, both forms are hexagonal crystals, the columns having a hexagonal cross section and the plates appearing as flat hexagons. Because they must grow outward from some supporting object, they rarely assume the perfect symmetry found in many snow crystals. Over ice-covered ponds and rivers, beautiful clusters or rosettes of fernlike or jewel-like frost collect on the surface of the ice. At very low temperatures, cubical crystals are sometimes found.

In cold weather, striking frost forms are often found on the inner surfaces of windowpanes in buildings. In most cases with heated rooms, the vapour condenses as a liquid first, but if the conditions are right, as in an unheated room, the delicate, pure crystalline forms are predominant, evoking a variety of fanciful descriptions.

In gardening and horticulture, frost refers to the freezing of the aqueous solutions in the plant cells, causing these to burst and destroy the plant. Only plants containing plentiful and dilute solutions in their leaves, fruits, and so on, are easily damaged. The occurrence of a killing frost without a hoarfrost deposit is sometimes popularly called a black frost.

The most important aspect of frost in relation to plants is its determination of the length of the growing season: the period from the last killing frost in spring to the first killing frost in autumn, with reference to the tenderest crop plants. There are regions where the season reaches critically short duration for the maturing of most usable crops and others where the season is so long that more than one planting of such crops as corn (maize) and alfalfa can be brought to harvest. In regions where frost is rare or absent, other factors take on more importance.

One of the most critical situations for frost is encountered in the citrus fruit regions. There the few killing frosts likely each winter are combated by a variety of methods, including heating the groves with special burners using oil or a petroleum-derived solid fuel, mixing the air with large fans mounted above the trees, or casting a fine water spray over and on the trees to keep the temperature at or very near the nondamaging level of 32 °F (0 °C).