Frozen Vortex
Posted by Shannon Love on December 23rd, 2008 (All posts by Shannon Love)
Check out this bizarre natural phenomenon. Make sure to play the movie.
Stable vortexes form at the ends of bends in rivers as the water that accelerates on the outside of a bend collides with the slower-moving water that traversed the inside of the bend. The velocity sheer produces a vortex. Apparently, an ice pan formed in the center of the stable vortex and then slowly grew until it reached the turbulent edge of the vortex. The turbulence at the edge prevented ice from forming leaving a lubricating liquid layer that lets the ice pan rotate in the vortex.
Neat!
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Very cool.
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
you kilt it!
(whole site is down now)
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I have to say: to your explanation I much prefer one that state the thing is the work of ice fairies.
Where is your romantic side, Shannon?
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Tatyana,
I have to say: to your explanation I much prefer one that state the thing is the work of ice fairies.
Where is your romantic side, Shannon?
Turbulence is more beautiful than fairies.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Beautiful, yes, but not romantic.
December 26th, 2008 at 12:01 am
>>> Turbulence is more beautiful than fairies.
> Beautiful, yes, but not romantic.
Sez who??
Ode to Turbulent Flow
Big whorls have little whorls
That feed on their velocity,
And little whorls have lesser whorls
And so on to viscosity.
— Lewis F. Richardson