It can be absolutely stunning and photographers have been taking full advantage but a lot of people have been confusing the type of frost that has covered southern Saskatchewan.

We do get a bit of hoar frost in Saskatchewan as water vapour in the air flash freezes and blankets the trees with glistening shards of fragile frost. The difference with what we have now is that this frost is thick, heavy and came about from actual moisture rather than vapour.

Terri Lang is a Services Meteorologist with Environment Canada and says this is rime frost. "Rime frost has to have the existence of liquid water droplets and those are around in the form of the fog."

"When those little water droplets encounter something, they freeze onto that object because that object is below zero."

And that is what causes the rime frost to appear so dramatic. It's heavier, denser and more stable than hoar frost which is also the reason it's causing so many problems. A rime frost will do damage to infrastructure, such as power lines because of how heavy it can be.