Wind sculpted this frozen sand in Michigan

It was fiercely cold in the U.S. state of Michigan this past weekend, when Joshua Nowicki posted this cool photo at EarthSky Facebook. He said these interesting formations were created by the wind eroding the frozen sand at Silver Beach County Park in Saint Joseph, Michigan on February 14, 2015. The largest one, he wrote, was about 12 inches (30 cm) tall.

Thank you, Joshua!

How cold was it in Michigan? Dangerously cold. Mlive.com/weather wrote that – at 7 a.m. Sunday morning, February 15, 2015 – every reporting site except Port Hope and Munising was below zero Fahrenheit. Here’s a listing of the Sunday morning readings they collected from around the state of Michigan:

Gaylord -21°
Houghton Lake -18°
Alpena -15°
Traverse City -13°
Saginaw -13°
Bay City -13°
Midland -13°
Lansing -12°
Flint -11°
Jackson -11°
Ann Arbor -10°
Detroit -9°
Grand Rapids -8°
Kalamazoo -6°
Muskegon -5°
Marquette -4°

Phew! That’s cold.

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Bottom line: It was cold in the upper U.S this weekend, when Joshua Nowicki noticed and captured these cool frozen sand formations.