Raining snowballs

I was planning on looking this up elsewhere, but instead I thought
I'd give the amateur meteorologists here a chance to strut their
stuff. Saturday afternoon, we were under a threat of rain all day, and
the lake effect moisture off Lake Ontario was promising to deliver.
The sky was both interesting and menacing; and the occasional rumble of
thunder in the distance kept our attention skyward more than usual.

Then the precipitation started. Just like a summer downpour, it poured
from the sky in mass quantities; no lightning, no thunder, very little
wind. The odd part is, it wasn't rain, it was snow. Not a regular
"thundersnow" like I've seen plenty of times. No, it was a
veritable downpour of snowballs; little round snowballs about a quarter
of an inch in diameter. It wasn't hail, it was far too soft. It
wasn't exactly sleet either, at least not like sleet I've seen
before. It was little balls made up of tiny little snow crystals. If
you squeezed one, it would easily crush just like a snowball.

Because of the thunderstorms in the area (we never got one), I have to
assume those updrafts had something to do with the formation of this
stuff; but I've never seen anything like it. It was brief,
beautiful, and even a bit funny to watch bouncing off the ground and
the fishermen. Air temps at the time were probably in the low to mid
40s if that helps. Anybody have a name for this stuff or how it's
formed?

On 18 Oct 2006 11:23:22 -0700, "rb608" wrote:

I was planning on looking this up elsewhere, but instead I thought
I'd give the amateur meteorologists here a chance to strut their
stuff. Saturday afternoon, we were under a threat of rain all day, and
the lake effect moisture off Lake Ontario was promising to deliver.
The sky was both interesting and menacing; and the occasional rumble of
thunder in the distance kept our attention skyward more than usual.

Then the precipitation started. Just like a summer downpour, it poured
from the sky in mass quantities; no lightning, no thunder, very little
wind. The odd part is, it wasn't rain, it was snow. Not a regular
"thundersnow" like I've seen plenty of times. No, it was a
veritable downpour of snowballs; little round snowballs about a quarter
of an inch in diameter. It wasn't hail, it was far too soft. It
wasn't exactly sleet either, at least not like sleet I've seen
before. It was little balls made up of tiny little snow crystals. If
you squeezed one, it would easily crush just like a snowball.

Because of the thunderstorms in the area (we never got one), I have to
assume those updrafts had something to do with the formation of this
stuff; but I've never seen anything like it. It was brief,
beautiful, and even a bit funny to watch bouncing off the ground and
the fishermen. Air temps at the time were probably in the low to mid
40s if that helps. Anybody have a name for this stuff or how it's
formed?

We had two waves of those come over us. The first one showered us with
pea-sized snow balls, coming down thick enough that it was hard to see
anything more than a couple hundred feet away.

The next wave came a few minutes later, its arrival presaged by a building
roar coming from the woods on the south bank. Paul and I looked at each other
as we wondered WTF could make that much noise, just as the leading edge of the
wave broke over the river and dropped mothball size snowballs on us for
awhile.

And there *was* thunder just to the west of us. And big black thunderheads as
well. If we hadn't been below a decent canopy of trees we'd have bailed for
sure...

/daytripper

"rb608" wrote in message
ps.com...
I was planning on looking this up elsewhere, but instead I thought
I'd give the amateur meteorologists here a chance to strut their
stuff. Saturday afternoon, we were under a threat of rain all day, and
the lake effect moisture off Lake Ontario was promising to deliver.
The sky was both interesting and menacing; and the occasional rumble of
thunder in the distance kept our attention skyward more than usual.

Then the precipitation started. Just like a summer downpour, it poured
from the sky in mass quantities; no lightning, no thunder, very little
wind. The odd part is, it wasn't rain, it was snow. Not a regular
"thundersnow" like I've seen plenty of times. No, it was a
veritable downpour of snowballs; little round snowballs about a quarter
of an inch in diameter. It wasn't hail, it was far too soft. It
wasn't exactly sleet either, at least not like sleet I've seen
before. It was little balls made up of tiny little snow crystals. If
you squeezed one, it would easily crush just like a snowball.

Because of the thunderstorms in the area (we never got one), I have to
assume those updrafts had something to do with the formation of this
stuff; but I've never seen anything like it. It was brief,
beautiful, and even a bit funny to watch bouncing off the ground and
the fishermen. Air temps at the time were probably in the low to mid
40s if that helps. Anybody have a name for this stuff or how it's
formed?


They call it 'corn snow'. Seems to only happen in the spring in the
Sierras.

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...

"rb608" wrote in message
ps.com...

snip

It was little balls made up of tiny little snow crystals. If
you squeezed one, it would easily crush just like a snowball.

Because of the thunderstorms in the area (we never got one), I have to
assume those updrafts had something to do with the formation of this
stuff; but I've never seen anything like it. It was brief,
beautiful, and even a bit funny to watch bouncing off the ground and
the fishermen. Air temps at the time were probably in the low to mid
40s if that helps. Anybody have a name for this stuff or how it's
formed?


They call it 'corn snow'. Seems to only happen in the spring in the
Sierras.


We got the same thing here in W. Michigan late last week. BB sized
snowballs. Wierd. Kinda cool though.

Jeremy Moe

On 18 Oct 2006 11:23:22 -0700, "rb608"
wrote:

I was planning on looking this up elsewhere, but instead I thought
I'd give the amateur meteorologists here a chance to strut their
stuff. Saturday afternoon, we were under a threat of rain all day, and
the lake effect moisture off Lake Ontario was promising to deliver.
The sky was both interesting and menacing; and the occasional rumble of
thunder in the distance kept our attention skyward more than usual.

Then the precipitation started. Just like a summer downpour, it poured
from the sky in mass quantities; no lightning, no thunder, very little
wind. The odd part is, it wasn't rain, it was snow. Not a regular
"thundersnow" like I've seen plenty of times. No, it was a
veritable downpour of snowballs; little round snowballs about a quarter
of an inch in diameter. It wasn't hail, it was far too soft. It
wasn't exactly sleet either, at least not like sleet I've seen
before. It was little balls made up of tiny little snow crystals. If
you squeezed one, it would easily crush just like a snowball.

Because of the thunderstorms in the area (we never got one), I have to
assume those updrafts had something to do with the formation of this
stuff; but I've never seen anything like it. It was brief,
beautiful, and even a bit funny to watch bouncing off the ground and
the fishermen. Air temps at the time were probably in the low to mid
40s if that helps. Anybody have a name for this stuff or how it's
formed?


Probably graupel.

Its frost covered ice crystals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel

g.c.

"rb608" wrote in message
ps.com...

...Anybody have a name for this stuff

Not me.

or how it's formed?

I've got a guess. Hail gets buffeted up and down by conflicting air
currents. Each time it drops down into warmer and wetter air, the surface
melts and accretes a new layer of water via condensation and/or
microdroplets. Each time it moves up, the now greater surface
refreezes.....and on and on it goes till the hailstones are too heavy to be
lifted anymore. The snowballs are formed pretty much the same way. The
difference is that at this time of year the warm air layer is not nearly as
much so as in the summer months. If any melting occurs at all, it is
minimal. When the ball goes back up, it doesn't have a film of liquid water
to freeze into solid ice.....just fused snowflakes.

Wolfgang

George Cleveland wrote:
Probably graupel.
Its frost covered ice crystals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel

Yep; that looks like the stuff. The upper limit of the 2 - 5 mm
diameter about matches what I saw.

Tx,
Joe F.

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 19:29:33 GMT, "Calif Bill"
wrote:



They call it 'corn snow'. Seems to only happen in the spring in the
Sierras.

I was under the impression that corn snow is what happens after the
normal snow is on the ground and goes through some slight melt then
freeze and repeat stuff.
--

r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. Really.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

"Cyli" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 19:29:33 GMT, "Calif Bill"
wrote:



They call it 'corn snow'. Seems to only happen in the spring in the
Sierras.

I was under the impression that corn snow is what happens after the
normal snow is on the ground and goes through some slight melt then
freeze and repeat stuff.
--

r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. Really.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

Here in the west, it is what we call the mini snowballs that come down.
Maybe 5mm.