Wow - What Wacky Weather!!!

Photos by Lisa E White

Though I cannot begin to compete with the pictures I have seen of snow around the valley yesterday, my backyard was a winter wonderland.  Even the water pouring out of the grooves in the tile roof was beautiful as it glistened like strings of diamonds in the sun. ( Gutters may be a good idea, but would destroy this beautiful screen of water.)  The word of the day is graupel.  The English language* is so fascinating, as this German word came into our language in 1889 and is now part of our description of snow.  Graupel is different from hail and sleet, which both are clear rather than white.  When water freezes around a snowflake, graupel can be formed, less convective in formation that hail.  Often referred to as snow pellets, graupel is generally from 2-5 mm, white, and breaks apart easily.  Yesterday  afternoon was an exciting weather day in Scottsdale, with a bit of hail, snow and graupel.  Families were stopped on the parks and greenbelts while children made snowmen, or snowballs!!!  

*"Eskimo words for snow" hoax.  There are not 100 words for snow in the Eskimo language.  First, there is no Eskimo language.  Second, the people we refer to as Eskimos, the Inuits, have the same number of words for snow as we do in English, but create more polysyllabic words for snow with more suffixes.  For example, in English we might add adjectives such as wet snow or snow drift, but they would create one distinct compound word.  On the other hand, and Arctic people known as the Sami have 180 words for snow and 1000 words for reindeer.