Ice Ice Baby Wild & Weird

# Marauding mice and balls of ice and sharks on a golfing spree

# Cicada swarms and Martian storms and fish walking out of the sea

# Elks in trees and foaming seas and giant mayfly mobs

-# Zombie snails and friendly whales and completely frozen frogs.

-What?

# Wild and weird, wild and weird

# Really, really wild and really, really weird

# Wild and weird, wild and weird

# Really, really wild and really, really wild and weird. #

It's all things SNOW business today with the wall of ice that

engulfed a town...

The frog that has a really cool trick for surviving the winter...

And the mysterious hailstone as big as a rugby ball

that fell from the sky.

You've got to love this country.

One minute, here we are, basking in glorious sunshine.

The next minute, it's a raging gale.

WIND HOWLS

Whoa.

And then there is the potential for fog.

FOG HORN

SHE COUGHS

And snow.

Oh, isn't it pretty?

And, of course, in the UK, we get a lot of rain.

Yes, we do. Which is why I'm prepared.

Hang on, where's my umbrella? Wait, stop, stop, stop!

Don't even think about it.

Spoilsport. All right, we'll go straight on to the hailstones.

-Hailstones?!

-Yeah, I'll just get my protective headgear on.

-Where did you get that from?

-OK, guys.

-Wait! Hold on, hold on.

-Do not throw that. Bring that here.

-Wow.

-This is massive.

Was he going to throw that at us?

Yes, you think I'm wearing this for fun?

But hailstones are tiny - this would knock you out!

Yeah, it would and, believe me, one that size did

fall from the sky and very nearly did knock someone out.

-You don't believe me, do you?

-No.

-Here, have a look at this.

It made the news.

A grandfather has been hit by a big block of ice

which fell from the sky while he was in his garden.

-No way!

-Way. Keep watching.

So, let me paint the picture.

This is hail as you know it.

Tiny balls of ice pelting down on the Earth.

But hail can get even larger. So much so, it becomes like missiles.

MAN: Woo-hoo!

This is awesome!

Now, imagine if something like this fell out of the sky.

-You are kidding.

-It's true. It happened to a man in Bristol.

Bristol? That's here in this country.

-That happened here in the UK?

-Yeah.

-Crikey. It's a bit close to home for my liking.

-Yes, and for this guy.

-Who's that?

-David Gammon. Thought he'd had his bacon.

HE CHUCKLES

Too hammy?

HE CHUCKLES

It's now down to about the size of an orange,

but nonetheless, travelling at 120mph or so, it comes as quite a shock.

It is like being hit by a fast bowler with a cricket ball.

Whoa, that would be painful.

# Ice, ice, baby... #

We need a BBC weather bod to explain all.

# Ice, ice, baby... #

-Who's that?

-That Darren Bett, one of the Met office's best.

-Where's he going?

-Sorry, dodgy camera work.

Pan back a sec to Darren. There you go, we're still doing his intro.

No, just... Oh, now it's out of focus. Over to you, Darren.

These large chunks of ice are very heavy.

I don't know of any updrafts that can keep them up in the air

and build them and grow them in the same way that a hailstorm can.

Also, they seem to be coming from cloudless skies.

-That's strange. No clouds?

-No.

So, something else in the sky, possibly carrying water that

if it escaped could freeze on its way to the ground. Is it a bird?

-Is it a pl...

-Go on. Go on!

-A plane!

-It's funny you say that.

Who's that?

That is the head of airworthiness at the Civil Aviation Authority.

# Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away... #

If the ice is completely clear,

then we are pretty sure it's most likely not an aviation source.

But sometimes we have reports of ice that is coloured.

That usually suggests there is chemical content, which

-we do use in treating toilet waste.

-So, top tip there.

Beware of blue ice.

It could have been flushed out of an aeroplane loo.

# Let's fly awa-a-ay

# And don't tell your mama! #

-But according to the stats...

-What stats?

-In this. Ice Weekly?

Only the coolest people read it.

Anyway, it says here only 5% of reported cases of

ice blocks in the UK can be linked to planes.

So what about the other 95%? And, more importantly,

the piece that hit poor David, could it have fallen from space?

Interesting. You hit play. I will read this.

It says here...

Experts have named these unidentified falling

objects as megacryometeors.

With a name like that, it would suggest they came from space.

But on closer inspection,

they don't have enough dust or iron content to be typical meteors.

For now, the scientists are actually out of ideas, so,

for the moment, large chunks of ice falling to Earth remain a mystery.

Give me that. What?

"Large chunks of ice, blah, blah, blah, remain a mystery?"

-That's a rubbish story, it doesn't have an ending.

-It isn't rubbish.

Besides, one thing I do know for sure is if that chunk of ice were

to hit you, it would really hurt.

What, this one?

-Well? Did it hurt?

-No, it didn't hurt, it was melted!

-Oh, well.

Anyway. Moving on.

Meet the wood frog,

the only amphibian to be found north of the Arctic Circle.

Pretty cold up there, Naomi. Weird place for a frog to live.

You're right. So when winter comes...

-It freezes solid?

-Yep!

-So, it dies.

-No.

-But it's frozen solid.

-Yep.

But this frog has a secret superpower.

-What, other than freezing itself solid and not dying?

-Yep.

-Come this spring, it will thaw out and come back to life.

-No! What?

-And how does it do it?

-Yeah, how on earth does it do it?

-Nobody knows.

-And that's the end of the story.

-What?

No, no, no, you can't stop there. What?

It's not very nice, not getting an ending, is it?

You are evil, Wilkinson. You sucked me in, knowing too well.

I'm not that mean. I do know why it does that,

I just wanted you to see what it feels like.

-And? How does he do it?

-OK, I'll show you.

-Yes.

As the first ice crystals begin to form on the frog's damp skin,

its core temperature plummets.

Its liver goes into overdrive, producing masses of glucose,

a type of sugar which it pumps into its cells

to act as a kind of antifreeze.

At the same time, it releases a protein which attaches to the

water molecules between those cells, so that when they freeze,

ice crystals are too small to do any damage.

It can stay in this suspended animation for weeks on end,

until a change in temperature allows it to slowly thaw.

So you could say...

# The cold never bothered him anyway. #

Oh, let it go, Naomi.

So, basically, it can freeze and then defrost.

-Yeah.

-That is pretty cool, actually. That is cool.

Right, continuing today's theme of...

# Ice, ice, baby... #

let's agree that the final story will definitely have an ending.

Agreed. You have one in mind?

Yeah, a death-defying moving wall of ice that engulfs

and terrorises a small town.

-Yeah, sounds fab!

-You're sick.

We're heading to Winnipeg in Canada,

where residents of Ochre Beach woke up one morning to this.

-MAN:

-This is absolutely crazy.

I agree, that is absolutely crazy.

As crazy as it sounds, a nine-metre-high wall of ice rose up

and threatened to engulf an entire street.

Residents like Miles Haverluck...

-I am looking.

-No, "Haverluck".

-I told you, I am.

-No, his name is Miles...

-I know, "Haverluck".

-Have a look at what?

-This.

-Hang on, who is telling this story?

-I am.

-Are you?

-Yeah, have a look.

As Tim was saying, residents like Miles Haverluck...

Ahem. Carry on.

..could only stand back

and watch in horror as their homes faced a tsunami of ice.

I like to use the analogy of a freight train sort of coming at you,

because it almost seemed like that. This happened in a matter of minutes.

It was probably coming about the same as you would walk

and it just kept on moving.

You looked out thinking, "This has got to stop. This has got to stop."

But it didn't.

Miles's friend was filming as second by second the ice surged

-towards the house.

-We're about to get engulfed by ice.

It's about to come through the house.

All these houses are getting engulfed by ice.

But just when it seemed nothing could stop it,

everything went quiet.

Oh. That's me. That's me. Sorry. Sat on the mute button.

It's so big, isn't it?

I'll just turn that up.

-MAN:

-Please...

Oh. It is very quiet.

-That is because the ice tsunami stopped.

-The ice tsunami?

Please explain.

When layers of snow build up, they compress and create a glacier.

Their sheer mass makes them flow down through the landscape,

carving up the solid rock below.

It might travel just a few metres a year, but as this sped up

footage shows, over time, this movement makes quite an impact.

But these processes often take thousands of years, not minutes,

so what caused such a dramatic and quick change in the ice

at Ochre Beach?

You'd do worse to ask this lady, Michelle.

She's an expert on all things glaci...glacial...glaze...

She knows everything about ice.

In the middle of winter, the ice is all stuck together

and it's very resistant to motion,

but once it starts to break up in the springtime, it can start to move.

And from what the local residents remember,

the weather was changing quite dramatically as well that day.

Hang on, who is telling this story?

-I am.

-Oh. OK.

They were predicting high winds.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, it was as calm as calm could be

and at six o'clock at night it was absolutely unbelievable.

My daughter said, "Look at the trees, Dad."

Our trees in the front lawn, they were doubled down.

It looked like they were nearly touching the ground.

I'm surprised they didn't break.

Michelle, what possible effect could this have on our thawing lake?

Often times when you have rapid warming in the springtime,

you will also have stormy conditions, so as the ice starts to break up,

if you have a big wind gust or storm event, it will start to

push on that ice and it will get it to raft onto the shore.

# You're as cold as ice... #

I could see it just moving along the shoreline...

# You're as cold as ice... #

When it hits the land, the land has friction,

so the ice that is the first to hit the land stops.

MUSIC STARTS AGAIN

And all the ice is piled up behind it, kind of crumbling on top of it.

It looks like a slow wave that is coming ashore, but it's

basically all the ice tumbling over the ice that has stopped.

Fortunately, no-one was hurt, and once the ice melted,

the town had the arduous task of rebuilding their houses.

Totally weird.

What are you doing?

Well, I was just going to try out my new wall of ice

-symbol for my weather map.

-Are you sure that's wise?

Probably not, but what's the worst that could happen?

RUMBLING

Whoa!

THEY SCREAM