An amateur photographer captured the phenomenon at Berrow Beach in Somerset.
“Frozen sea foam” took over a beach and made for stunning scenes as temperatures plunged across the UK.
Aiden Malik went to Berrow Beach in Somerset on Wednesday to photograph the sunset but instead found a covering of the “shin-deep” substance.
Mr Malik said: “It wasn’t quite snow, it wasn’t quite ice and it wasn’t foam – it was a weird mix of everything.”
BBC weather presenter Ian Fergusson explained it had to be minus two centigrade (28F) for it to occur.
Mr Malik took the photographs on an evening when temperatures plunged across the UK.
The amateur photographer said he was able to make snowballs out of it.
“At the risk of sounding undignified I did taste it and it wasn’t salty, which made me wonder what is was,” said Mr Malik.
He said: “Like a lot of people I’ve been going for different walks in my local area and I thought I might be able to catch the sunset so I went to my nearest westerly-facing beach which is Berrow.
“When I saw it [the substance] it looked so ridiculously out of place, even though it was very cold.
“It was definitely more icy than standard snow but you could ball it up into a snowball.
“The fact it didn’t taste salty made me wonder if it came from the sea.
“The tide was coming back in so I assume it had been there for a while.”
Mr Fergusson confirmed what Mr Malik had photographed was frozen sea foam.