Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/97

 Glaze: An Old Winter Foe with a New Name

��Sleet storms will hereafter be called glaze storms

��It has been with us since the beginning of time, but it was only a year ago that it obtained its christening from the U. S. Weather Bureau

��LAST winter a new weather word made its bow in the daily press — "glaze." Occur- rences of "glaze" were frequently reported, and some of the visi- tations of this atmos- pheric phenomenon occasioned damage to the extent of thou- sands of dollars.

In previous years the newspapers called it "sleet" or "ice" or "silver thaw." Glaze forms when rain is turned to ice by the low temperature of the objects upon which it falls. Here are some results of actual measurements. A twig 3-16 inch in diam- eter has been found to measure with its ice coating nearly two inches in diameter. One case is reported in which an ice- coated elm twig about six inches long, broken from the tree, weighed 153^ ounces. This was about five hundred times the weight of the twig alone. The

���Beautiful — But Destructive

The branches of trees and shrubs become encased in glaze, until the whole landscape resembles fairyland

��Not only branches, but telegraph, telephone and electric wires break under the heavy load. The deposits reach re- markable dimensions

��coating on a slender telephone wire may attain a thickness of two inches and up- wards. Indeed, cases are recorded in which the combined thick- ness of ice and snow on such a wire reach- ed the enormous di- ameter of ten inches. No wonder hundreds of miles of wire and thousands of poles sometimes go down when glaze occurs on an extensive scale. But why "glaze"? This word was in- troduced by the Weather Bureau over a year ago, because a distinctive name was needed for these ice deposits. The elec- trical industries had fallen into the way of calling this formation "sleet." But "sleet" means something different— or rather several things. This word is ap- plied by some people, especially in Eng- land, to falling snowflakes mingled with rain. Now it must give way to " glaze."

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