Diamond dust is a ground-level cloud composed of tiny ice crystals. This meteorological phenomenon is also referred to simply as ice crystals and is reported in the METAR code as IC. Diamond dust generally forms under otherwise clear or nearly clear skies, so it is sometimes referred to as clear-sky precipitation.

2024年1月31日 · Diamond Dust: Snow From The Clear Blue Sky? Can it really snow from a cloudless sky? Learn about the meteorological phenomenon known as diamond dust and how and where it forms.

Diamond dust can be observed in polar and alpine regions and continental interiors, especially in clear, calm and cold weather. It forms at temperatures typically less than –10 °C in a rapidly cooling airmass.

2011年1月9日 · Diamond dust is a cloud composed of tiny ice crystals that forms near the ground. It is often reported under clear sky conditions and so is also known as ‘clear-sky precipitation.’ The formation of diamond dust requires very cold temperatures, typically less than minus-13.

2024年7月2日 · Diamond dust is a form of precipitation consisting of slowly falling, minute, unbranched ice crystals that often appear to float suspended in the air. They float through the air very slowly and...

2021年12月7日 · According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, diamond dust snow is created when "precipitation composed of slowly falling, very small, unbranched crystals of ice which often seem to float in the air; it may fall from a high cloud or from a cloudless sky."

2023年8月1日 · Diamond dust forms close to the ground at very low temperatures during clear skies. These crystals are tiny (think on the scale of thousandths of an inch) and vary in shape from tiny hexagons to thin, long columns or short, stubby columns. The shape is a function of temperature during formation.

2017年8月1日 · Diamond dust is associated with optical phenomena like the formation of light pillars, halos, and sun dogs. The diamond dust is composed of well-defined hexagonal crystals that, like a prism, can reflect or refract light in specific directions.

Small ice columns and needles, “diamond dust,” will be formed and will float down, glittering, even from a cloudless sky. In the coldest parts of Antarctica, where temperatures near the surface are below −50 °C (−58 °F) on the average and rarely above …

Small ice crystals falling from an apparently cloudless sky, (often, but not always, at night). Crystals originate from air having a higher moisture content above a thermal inversion aloft, where mixing leads to nucleation and growth of crystals at temperatures near -40°C. This page was last edited on 27 March 2024, at 12:16.