Sifting through the snow
By now, most of us have seen son.
ing on where you live, it might have been cosmetic haps more detect some confusion when it comes to describing snowfall. During the next few months, we’ll no doubt hear the frozen crystals referred to as snow, and snow squalls but these are not interchangeable. Snowfall typically describes an event that lasts for a period of time; it is commonly associated with some accumulation of snow on the ground. scribed as the rain equivalent that don’t amount to anything them as harmless or very light snow.
Then we have snow showers. These could be seen as the ers. Snow showers mean that you’ll get short bouts of snow; it can be snowing for an hour, it might be snowing in some places around the area, but not others.
Finally, the infamous snow squalls.
There are two types of snow mon if you don’t live close to a large body of water, is a frontal case, the snow squall is a short but ferocious burst of heavy snow and strong wind, usually lasting less than an hour. The other type of snow squall well here on the East Coast; warmer water.
These squalls begin with a strong wind carrying cold, dry air across a warmer body of water. They gather moisture over the relatively mild water and dump snow when they the wind, the farther inland squalls of heavy snow can sit eral hours, even days; nothing changes until the wind direction does.
Knowing which way the wind blows is always very important when you live by the water. Perhaps a weather vane would be a good gift idea for that Christmas list.