JANUARY 27, 2021. QUINCY, CA
There’s a major winter storm happening in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains. It started here around 8:30 last night. As I write this, at 3:30 a.m. the morning of the 27th, the snow has stopped falling and we’ve got about four inches accumulated. The weather forecast calls for continued winter snowstorm conditions for the next several days.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.
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Snow is much more than (as one Floridian I know of has oft described it) “...that cold, lumpy white stuff, right?” It’s a pain in the butt for some, employment for others. It can be playtime and serious athletic competition, inspire incredible artistic creation one day and wreak destruction and death the next.
There’s an entire science in the study of snow. Following the tradition of science to come up with unpronounceable and dazzling terminologies, it’s called, uh , Snow Science. Actually, it’s not even capitalized. It’s that boring.
Snow science addresses how snow forms, its distribution, and processes affecting how snowpacks change over time. Scientists improve storm forecasting, study global snow cover and its effect on climate, glaciers, and water supplies around the world. The study includes physical properties of the material as it changes, bulk properties of in-place snow packs, and the aggregate properties of regions with snow cover. In doing so, they employ on-the-ground physical measurement techniques to establish ground truth and remote sensing techniques to develop understanding of snow-related processes over large areas.
Science may be boring for some but not for physics-loving geeks/nerds/losers like me. (That’s snark, ok? I’m not a loser, just a geek and a nerd.)
The myth that the Inuit have 50/100/1000 words for snow is an old one, but there is scientific classification of snow.
Ukichiro Nakaya began an extensive study on snowflakes in 1932. From 1936 to 1949, Nakaya created the first artificial snow crystals and charted the relationship between temperature and water vapor saturation, later called the Nakaya Diagram and other works of research in snow, which were published in 1954 by Harvard University Press publishes as Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial. Teisaku Kobayashi, verified and improves the Nakaya Diagram with the 1960 Kobayashi Diagram, later refined in 1962.
b-o-r-i-n-g….
Precipitation particles
The classification of frozen particulates extends the prior classifications of Nakaya and his successors and are quoted in the following table:[14]
Precipitation particles
Subclass |
Shape |
Physical process |
Columns |
Prismatic crystal, solid or hollow |
Growth from water vapour
at −8 °C and below–30 °C
|
Needles |
Needle-like, approximately cylindrical |
Growth from water vapour
at super-saturation at −3 to −5 °C below −60 °C
|
Plates |
Plate-like, mostly hexagonal |
Growth from water vapour
at 0 to −3 °C and −8 to −70 °C
|
Stellars, Dendrites |
Six-fold star-like, planar or spatial |
Growth from water vapour
at supersaturation at 0 to −3 °C and at −12 to −16 °C
|
Irregular crystals |
Clusters of very small crystals |
Polycrystals growing in varying
environmental conditions
|
Graupel |
Heavily rimed particles, spherical, conical,
hexagonal or irregular in shape
|
Heavy riming of particles by
accretion of supercooled water droplets
|
Hail |
Laminar internal structure, translucent
or milky glazed surface
|
Growth by accretion of
supercooled water, size: >5 mm
|
Ice pellets |
Transparent,
mostly small spheroids
|
Freezing of raindrops or refreezing of largely melted snow crystals or snowflakes (sleet).
Graupel or snow pellets encased in thin ice layer (small hail). Size: both 5 mm
|
Rime |
Irregular deposits or longer cones and
needles pointing into the wind
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Accretion of small, supercooled fog droplets frozen in place.
Thin breakable crust forms on snow surface if process continues long enough.
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All are formed in cloud, except for rime, which forms on objects exposed to supercooled moisture, and some plate, dendrites and stellars, which can form in a temperature inversion under clear sky.
So that’s not so bad. Only nine different kinds of snow. You will be expected to memorize the entire foregoing chart, verbatim. There will be a test.
Just kidding. The test will only be recounting the subclasses and drawing an accurate sketch of each. Points will be deducted for sloppy sketches.
Enough snow science. Let’s have some snow fun. Here’s one way we do it up in my neck of the woods. The historic Longboard Ski Races at Johnsville, CA, up in Plumas-Eureka State Park.
11:30 A.M. Go for a walk.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.
Thank you.
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