Polka Dot Surprise: ‘Rare’ Air Pocket Pattern Appears on Utah School Lot
Playground at Whittier Elementary School Utah was spiced with unusual white peas on Wednesday.
Chris Herrmann came to work at school on a cold January morning and saw a strange sight.
Thousands of white polka-dotted dots covered the black-paved playground, which was covered in ice from the previous night’s downpour.
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The “dots” were air pockets formed under the ice.
According to FOX weather meteorologist Marissa Lautenbacher, these air pockets form when cold water from freezing rain fills the nooks and crannies of asphalt. The air that occupied these nooks and crannies is then pushed out.
Because cold rain freezes as soon as it hits the asphalt, Lautenbacher noted, the air bubbles that are pushed out of the asphalt don’t have time to escape into the open air. This causes tiny air bubbles to collect, eventually forming large air pockets under the ice as they try to escape.
“Think of it like a new screen protector on your smartphone,” Lautenbacher said. “You have these bubbles stuck under the screen when you first put it on and you have to push the air bubbles out towards the screen so the air can get out – the ice is like that screen protector.”
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Although the phenomenon of air pockets forming under the ice is not uncommon, Lautenbacher noted that the number of ice bubbles formed in this school ground is rare.
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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.