For rime to occur, it needs a combination of cold climate, sufficient airborne moisture and clear skies overhead.

BBC: The quest to see China��s extraordinary frozen fog

Rime is most likely to appear in January, but sightings are not guaranteed.

BBC: The quest to see China��s extraordinary frozen fog

It includes ice-skating and skiing competitions, photography exhibitions and even rime-inspired poetry competitions.

BBC: The quest to see China��s extraordinary frozen fog

Tiny ice granules build up, growing into feathery white forms known as rime.

BBC: The quest to see China��s extraordinary frozen fog

Jilin celebrates the phenomenon each year from mid-December to February with the Jilin International Rime Ice and Snow Festival.

BBC: The quest to see China��s extraordinary frozen fog

The lawn that morning was cinematic, with dew lying like a rime of silvery frost on the playing surface.

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Even in January, rime only materializes for an average of 9.4 days.

BBC: The quest to see China��s extraordinary frozen fog

The ice adds weight to an aircraft, and rough accumulations known as rime interrupt the flow of air over wings.

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She cited Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner, " with its frozen polar wastes and specters of "Nightmare Life-in-Death, " which as an 8-year-old child she had heard the poet recite in her father's parlor, and she made several dark allusions to the alchemical experiments of Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, two Medieval figures with whom Percy had become obsessed during his studies at Oxford.

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