It's So Cold in the Midwest People Are Making Their Ramen Forks Float

Carly Tennes Published 01/18/2024 in ftw

As an Arctic blast sent temperatures plummeting into the negative double digits this past weekend, several (very bored) Midwesterners found a new way to pass the time beyond huddling together for warmth — freezing bowls of ramen in mid-air.

@visit
Throwing boiling water into the freezing air to see the spectacular result. When hot water is thrown into freezing air, it appears to turn into big white cloud. This is because the hot water is quickly condensing into water droplets and turning into steam, rather than freezing. This phenomenon is more likely to occur at temperatures around -14 F and below, and is more impressive in colder weather. The steam from the hot water has a large surface area to emit from and may condense and form ice and snow particles that fall back to the ground. How cool is this? ❄️ Yukon, Canada Ig: @danimarielister
♬ original sound - Visit

A long-running, yet newly-viral tradition across colder regions, the rules of the “ramen challenge” are simple: Prepare a bowl of instant ramen, swirl several noodles around a fork, prop the fork on an adjacent object, set the entire contraption out in negative 20-ish degree weather, and boom, you got yourself a gravity-defying soup.

“It’s -6 here in Indiana,” wrote Arielle Schmitt, who decided to hop on the trend after seeing several other iterations spread amid the cold snap. “I have to do something to stay entertained.”

@schmittly Replying to @csizzle79 answering the age old question how long does it take frozen Ramen noodles to thaw? #ramen #frozenramen #shinramen #buldakramen #snowday #placeyourbets ♬ Food - eas Ratta

Yet Schmitt, who also recorded her contraption thawing back to its physics-abiding state, was far from alone in hopping on the trend. Enter Jodi Lytle, a Michigan-based TikToker who likened the floating noodles to a work of art.

“It’s art, it’s frozen ramen!” she exclaimed after discovering her fork hovering over the bowl via several lines of chilled noodles. “We did it in the Frozen land of Michigan!”

@palletprincess0 #frozenramen #ramenchallenge #michiganstorm #freezinginmichigan #michigansnowstorm #freezingweather #snowdays #ramennoodles #socold #fyp #trend #wintertrend #wintertrends ♬ original sound - Jodi Lytle323