Circle of ice rotates on its own in Washington state river

NORTH BEND, Wash., Jan. 9 (UPI) -- A visitor to a Washington state river captured video of a rare phenomenon -- a thin disc of ice spinning on the surface of the water.

Kaylyn Messer said she heard about the spinning ice circle from someone who spotted it in the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River, so she took a drive out Saturday along the NF-5600 road near her North Bend home to see for herself.

"I was elated to see that the circle was still intact and spinning," she wrote on Facebook. "I spent the afternoon watching the slow rotations and listening to the murmurs of the ice."

A similar occurrence was caught on video last month in the Muskegon River, near the city of Houghton Lake, Mich.

The rotating ice discs occur when cold air comes in contact with an eddy in the river and the ice forms into a circle, which rotates due to the current it creates by slowly melting.