freezing water bottle

[JeffreyM1]

I was making coffee this morning. I pulled some high quality Kirkland bottled water from the garage to use for the coffee. The water in the bottle was not frozen - or even slushy. However, when I turned it over (inverted), it became cloudy and froze - almost instantly - to where only a few drops of water poured out.

I have never seen this before and had to video it (file too big to attach)! It happened with almost every bottle I tried - except for those I kept upright, took off the top and poured it directly into the coffee maker - all others froze. Weird!!!

[sophie_1003]

there was an article about this in the times recently, would post the link to the online article but their website is offline at the moment, its something like mineral water has very few impurities so wont freeze till air bubbles are created, e.g. when you turn the bottle over, will post the link when I can!

[Clanad]

Discussed here: http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Questio n192342.html

[bigbanana]

Have a look at this video clip:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/122560/water_ins tantly_freezes/

Is this what you saw? There are a number of apparent explanations on the page below the video clip, one of which looks impressive.

[brachiopod]

Super cooling.

[Mortartube]

It's exacly the same process as large hail formation in thunderclouds. Very large drops of supercooled water are held aloft in the updraft until they are hit by impurities, such as dust. They then turn to ice and the larger and heavier ones fall inside the cloud, whilst the lighter ones get carried upwards on the updraft. They rub together as they pass each other and generate electrical energy.