Thousands of mysterious snowballs wash up in waves on a Maine lake
Source: dailymail.co.uk
Mysterious waves of snowballs have washed ashore on a Maine lake, leaving residents in the area both confused and intrigued
Land art and sculpture artist David Allen captured the waves on Sebago Lake on video, and described the natural phenomenon as 'being from another planet'.
He saw the thousands of snowballs on Tuesday, after the first snowstorm of the year hit the region.
Thousands of large and mysterious snowballs washed ashore in waves on Sebago Lake in Maine on Tuesday
The snowballs came after the first snowstorm of the year hit the area. Land art and sculpture artist David Allen captured the waves on video
'It was extremely interesting and even awe-inspiring in way words can't really describe,' he told ABC News.
Allen was originally in the area to take photos of artwork he made nearby, but soon turned to the lake when he noticed the amazing sight.
Though the balls look icy and hard in the video Allen posted to Facebook, when he grabbed a couple out of the water, they had a different texture.
'I fished out a couple of the balls, and sure enough, they broke apart and were very slushy, definitely not ice,' he wrote on Facebook. 'The area where this was shot had a small stone jetty that acted as a catch and prevented the balls from continuing on down the shoreline.'
It seems to me, that this had a lot to do with the snow from the storm somehow accumulating in this way, in this very particular spot,' he added.
He said his best guess as to why the snowballs were forming was the combination of low temperatures and high winds.
Allen said that his best guess as to why the snowballs appeared on Sebago Lake (pictured here in August 2014), was the combination of low temperatures and high winds
My best guess, was that it was SO cold and windy, that when the snow hit the water, it didn't melt, but instead, remained as slush on the surface,' he wrote. 'This slush then got stuck in this area, and through wave and wind action, turned into these very uniform balls.'
Allen shared the video of the waves of snowballs to his artist studio's Facebook page, where it has more than 171,000 views.
Sebago Lake covers approximately 45 square miles in surface area and sits in Cumberland County in southern Maine.
The phenomenon has been seen elsewhere, according to MLive.
In 2014, beach ball-sized snowballs were spotted on Lake Michigan near Glen Arbor, Michigan.
At the time, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park Ranger Amie Lipscomb said that the balls form when chucks of ice break off of larger sheets of ice on the lake.
As waves move the ice chunks around, the edges are smoothed and rounded and new layers of ice are continually added.
Sebago Lake, which covers approximately 45 square miles, sits in southern Maine, approximately 25 miles from the New Hampshire border
Source: dailymail.co.uk
