Mondo Knows Facts
Frost forms straight from water vapour
On cold nights vapour turns to ice without first becoming liquid water When a surface cools below freezing and below the frost point, water vapour in the air deposits directly onto it as ice crystals. This is why frost patterns appear on grass and windows on clear winter nights. Clear skies help, because the ground radiates heat away quickly. It sits in Mondo's science collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
Hailstones grow in layers inside stormsUpdrafts carry ice pellets up and down, adding a coat on each passThe dew point marks when condensation startsCool air below this temperature can no longer hold all its water vapourIce cores hold bubbles of ancient airFalling snow seals atmosphere in layers, giving a direct record of past gasesAlbedo measures how much sunlight bounces offFresh snow reflects most sunlight while open ocean absorbs almost all of itWater needs a lot of heat to warm upWater has one of the highest specific heat capacities of any common substanceSweating cools you through latent heatEach gram of evaporating sweat carries away a large amount of body heat
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Tags: weather, ice, water
Frost forms straight from water vapour: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- On cold nights vapour turns to ice without first becoming liquid water. The figure is taken from Met Office, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a science fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Science shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.