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'Snowball waves' caught on camera in Maine lake

By Ben Hooper
"Snowballs" cover Sebago Lake in Maine. Weather Channel video screenshot
"Snowballs" cover Sebago Lake in Maine. Weather Channel video screenshot

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SEBAGO, Maine, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- A New England man captured video of "waves of snowballs" lapping against the shore in Maine's Sebago Lake.

David Allen of Stone Point Studio posted a video to Facebook showing the unusual state of the Sebago Lake waves Tuesday, just after the first winter weather hit the area.

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"This was one of the most awesome natural events I have ever seen!" Allen wrote in his Facebook post.

He offered some speculation as to how the snowball waves might have formed:

"I cannot say for sure, but here are the conditions leading to this. There was NO ice on the lake, so it isn't lake ice. In fact it has been very warm, right up until we got this snow/sleet/freezing rain storm. It was very cold when I shot this, maybe around 20 degrees. I fished out a couple of the balls, and sure enough, they broke apart and were very slushy, definitely not ice. 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. 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. This slush then got stuck in this area, and through wave and wind action, turned into these very uniform balls."

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