Thousands of snowballs appear on Russian coast

Russian residents living along the Arctic Gulf of Ob have come across thousands of perfectly round snowballs that look as if they were molded by humans on the beach.

Round snow globes that look like they were made by humans. Photo: Siberian Times.

Residents of the village of Nyda in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region, located above the Arctic Circle, discovered thousands of snowballs of various sizes on October 28. The smallest were as big as tennis balls while the largest were as big as basketballs.

"The balls appeared in one place as if someone had molded them. They were of different sizes. We were all very surprised. Many people only believed it when they saw it with their own eyes. This phenomenon had never happened before and there was not much snow in the area. It was an interesting sight," said Ekaterina Chernykh, a local resident.

"When the water in the bay rises, it comes into contact with the ice. The beach begins to be covered with ice. As the water recedes, the ice remains. Pieces of ice roll across the wet sand and become balls," explained Valery Akulov, the head of the village.

According to Sergey Lisenkov, spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), this is a rare natural phenomenon. Slippery ice mixed with slush under the influence of wind, coastline and temperature, rolls downhill and creates snowballs. A similar phenomenon occurred in Lake Michigan, USA, in 2014.

According to VNE