Frost

Every winter night, under cover of darkness, an unseen force moves silently across the land, sealing every surface beneath a glittering armour of ice. In the morning it is found on the car.^[1]

Frost forms when water in the air freezes onto cold surfaces. It is, in the words of the Meteorological Office, "dew that went out without a coat".

Patterns

Frost on a window often grows in the shape of ferns. Botanists have confirmed that none of these ferns is real, and have twice written to the frost to ask it to stop, without reply.^[2]

Scraping

The average windscreen takes four minutes to scrape, or eleven minutes if the driver is late. Frost has been shown to thicken in response to lateness, a relationship physicists call the Punctuality Coefficient. Drivers who leave early find almost no frost at all, and are left standing in the cold holding a scraper and feeling cheated.^[3]

• On time: 4 minutes.
• Five minutes late: 11 minutes.
• Very late: the frost is now load-bearing.

Jack Frost

Folklore attributes frost to Jack Frost, a figure who has never been seen. Folklorists are split between those who take this as proof that he does not exist and those who take it as proof that he is extremely good at his job.

See also

• Snow – frost that commits
• Window – where the ferns go
• Fog – frost's foggier cousin
• Icicle – frost that is hanging around

References

1. Rime, R. (1988). It Was on the Car. Hoar Press. p. 1.
2. Fern, F. (2004). "Not Ferns: A Second Letter". Unanswered.
3. Scraper, S. (2017). "The Punctuality Coefficient". Journal of Mornings 9: 4–11.