Frost
![Hoar frost or soft rime on a cold winter day in Lower Saxony, Germany](/Images/godic/202501/14/D_Hoarfrost_34813.jpg")
![Frost in the highest town in Venezuela, Apartaderos. Because its location in an alpine tundra ecosystem called páramo, they often undergo a sudden and drastic change in a daily freeze-and-thaw cycle, sometimes described as](/Images/godic/202501/14/Nevada-Apartadero-Merida-Venezuela4813.jpg")
![A spider web covered in air hoar frost](/Images/godic/202501/14/Frostweb4813.jpg")
![Depth hoar, imaged with light and with scanning electron microscopy.](/Images/godic/202501/14/LightLTSEM4813.jpg")
Frost is the coating or deposit of ice that may form in humid air in cold conditions, usually overnight. In temperate climates it most commonly appears as fragile white crystals or frozen dew drops near the ground, but in cold climates it occurs in a greater variety of forms. Frost is composed of delicate branched patterns of ice crystals formed as the result of fractal process development.