What Caused a 12-Pound Chunk of Ice to Crash into a Home in Wisconsin?

Get our free mobile app

Here in Minnesota and Wisconsin, we're used to seeing snow and ice. But not usually in 12-pound chunks that crash into your house, as this one did earlier over in Wisconsin this year.

It was earlier this year that Eau Claire, WI TV station WQOW reported on a story about a massive, 12-pound chunk of ice that crashed into a house in nearby Elk Mound (which is just west of Eau Clarie, about two hours northeast of Rochester.)

The cannon ball-sized ice chunk, which weighs a whopping 12.6 pounds, crashed through both the roof and ceiling in Ken Millermon's bedroom back in May. As WQOW reported, luckily nobody was hurt-- except for Millermon's roof-- when the ice chunk came crashing to earth. It did cause thousands of dollars in damage, though.

But where did it come from? And how did it end up crashing through the roof and ceiling of his house? That's what a team of investigators and chemists at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire set to find out.

In a follow-up story earlier this week, WQOW reported that the UWEC team determined the ice chunk (a 'megacryometeor,' as they're calling it) was 'of atmospheric origin' and likely formed in the earth's atmosphere, initially as several dust particles, and may have been 'carried into the higher levels of the atmosphere by strong wind storms at the surface,' the story noted.

Just how it ended up falling out of the atmosphere and into Ken Millermon's bedroom, though, is still a mystery. One thing the team determined the megacryometeor ISN'T though, is a 'poop-ball leaking out of a bathroom out on an airplane,' the story said. (Which is what I thought it might have been when I first read the story.)

Seeing something like this just confirms that Mother Nature can throw some odd stuff at you sometimes. And not just in Wisconsin, either. Keep scrolling to check out some of the most devasting weather disasters here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes!

Listen to Curt St. John in the Morning
weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5