What Are These Bizarre Formations At Meteorite Fall Sites?

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Photo credit:

Snow carrots. Left, in situ. Right, the lowest part is shown upside down with sunglasses for scale / C. Lorenz

Instead of craters, when meteorites land on snow, they make snow carrots. 

Early one February morning in 2013, a bright meteor and several flashes were seen near the Ural Mountains in western Russia. The 20-meter-diameter (65 ft) meteoroid broke apart in the atmosphere, releasing most of its energy about 20 to 40 kilometers (12 to 25 miles) up. A few days later, geologists collected 450 small fragments averaging 3 to 6 centimeters wide from an area 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Chelyabinsk. They added up to 4 kilograms (9 lbs) of meteorites.