Winter Weather Experiments

Whew it was cold outside last Friday morning.  It was by far the coldest morning this winter.  I took a picture of our thermometer outside the 41 Action News studios and you can clearly see the temperature was near zero.  Look!

     Frigid, frozen mornings like this bring to mind those, “Its so cold” jokes.  You know its so cold, your shadow freezes to the sidewalk.    Or it is so cold you that when you light a candle the flame freezes.   Okay, you can quit groaning.  Moving on.

     Toni Cole is a 4th grade teacher at my kids’ elementary and she has a theory, “there is a lesson in everything”.  I thought the same thing when I heard it might be near zero so I came up with a few experiments you can try at home the next time it is really cold, but remember to bundle up first.

    The first experiment, does a hot liquid freeze before a cold liquid or do they freeze at the same rate.  We took a glass container of hot coffee and a cool container of water.  I hypothesized the hot coffee would freeze first because it would lose heat at a faster rate.  If the hot liquid evaporates faster than it will have less mass and thus could freeze faster.  But the other question to ask is, “Will the cooler liquid freeze first because it doesn’t have to cool as much to reach the freezing point of 32°?

  After an hour and a half, I found both liquids frozen.  It appears they froze at the same rate but the cool liquid was frozen more than the hot coffee.  Try it and see what happens.

   Here is another fun experiment.  Soak a tee-shirt in water, then hang it outside.  See how long it takes for the shirt to freeze!  Our shirt took less than 15 minutes!

I saved the best experiment for last and it is really the coolest.  Get a bottle of “Miracle Bubbles” and start blowing bubbles in the frigid air.  Catch one of the bubbles on the wand and watch it freeze. 

    It won’t last long but you will have a frozen sphere for about 10 seconds.  By that time all the air inside the bubble will escape through the thin film and the bubble literally implode on itself.   Pretty cool stuff for some the coldest temperatures of the year, just don’t forget the hat & gloves!