Dunno about yagi's in particular, but for verticals I always had good
luck with thin elements. I have a 40 m ground plane I built from a junk
5/8 cb antenna. I just added thinner and thinner tubing to reach 32 ft.
The top 3 ft was actually a whip from a mobile antenna. It would bend
a good bit in strong wind, but never broke, and always bounced back
up straight after the wind was gone. Anway, I think ice might make
the thin yagi elements droop a bit, but I kinda doubt they would break.

Once melted, should look normal. C/C elements dropping? Dunno...
That would have to be some rusted out hardware. I just got a C/C
4218 this past weekend, and looking at it, I really doubt it's going to

be dropping any elements. The bolts holding the clamps would have to
break. That antenna should brown the food on 144 mhz... I got it
dirt
cheap, and it's all intact. Just needs a cleaning, and I think I'm
going
to change the hardware to stainless if I ever stick it in the air.
I use a homebrew 3 el for 6m made completely from copper tubing.
It's all welded together one piece. I also got a free drake R4C this
weekend...It was real dirty, but I've semi cleaned it up, turned it on,
and danged if it doesn't work half decent... So now I've got one of the

first R4's ever built, and one of the last... My old R4 is #0058... One
of the first churned out in 65... This C line radio is #22971...I guess

they built a few... I still got some more work to do on it, but I think
it
will clean up pretty nice.
MK