In article 0wrzd.3958$Y57.2782@trnddc08, says...

I have heard about this "Hot water freezes before cold water" in 1949 when
I was in the USAF, in Alaska. I never could accept the validity of that
statement. But I do know that there are conditions where the convection
currents within the hot water container serve to distribute the temperature.
And, it might be that the hot water had some gasses boiled out thereby
providing a better condition for freezing.

Another explanation that seemed to work in my freezer a few years ago.

I put a glass of hot water and a glass of cold water on my freezer
shelf, and the hot water froze first. When I put the glasses on the
plastic bottom shelf, the cold water froze first.

If your freezer's cooling coils are built into the shelf, and if you
have't defrosted the freezer recently, then the cooling coils will be
isulated with a good layer of frost. A glass full of hot water will
melt through more of this layer of isulation, so the coil will cool it
faster.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html