neverspent (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
neverspent) wrote2011-02-03 11:03 pm
neverspent) wrote2011-02-03 11:03 pm
February 3: Graupel
(Content warning: I am still obsessed with snow. It happens to me every year, when I feel the winter slipping away and I see half the country buried and I have seen tragically little white stuff.)
Today was unusually cold, below freezing all day and almost single digits overnight. I thought it might be too cold to snow, but when I arrived at my apartment I noticed little white pellets all over the grass. They looked like the individual tiny round balls that compose styrofoam. When I picked one up to investigate, it melted pretty quickly. It was quite soft, a miniature damp snowball.
There is so much I don't know about snow! I later found that this type of precipitation is called -- get ready for an awesome name -- graupel. Snow pellets or "soft hail." It forms when an snowflake inside a cloud collects supercooled microdroplets. Just enough to create a snowball fit for a ladybug.
Microscopic view of graupel!
public domain image from USDA Agricultural Research Service
via Wikimedia Commons
Today was unusually cold, below freezing all day and almost single digits overnight. I thought it might be too cold to snow, but when I arrived at my apartment I noticed little white pellets all over the grass. They looked like the individual tiny round balls that compose styrofoam. When I picked one up to investigate, it melted pretty quickly. It was quite soft, a miniature damp snowball.
There is so much I don't know about snow! I later found that this type of precipitation is called -- get ready for an awesome name -- graupel. Snow pellets or "soft hail." It forms when an snowflake inside a cloud collects supercooled microdroplets. Just enough to create a snowball fit for a ladybug.
public domain image from USDA Agricultural Research Service
via Wikimedia Commons