While looking out my back door this evening, I noticed an unusual shape in the snow on the deck. Pictured on your left is a nearly perfect right angled snow formation on a deck post.Knowing that right angles are somewhat rare in nature, I wondered how this shape came to be. My best guess is that this shape was formed as a result of the partial melting of what was originally a sphere, causing the flat surface that was underneath the snow to shift at a 90 degree angle when some of the snow fell off the side of the post.
And no: this was not man-made. There were no footprints in the fresh snow anywhere near the post in question, though perhaps an enterprising unladen swallow could have performed such a feat.
