Weird snow

[Lee Schierer]

In some fields near where I live, there are strange snow rollers, which are apparently a relatively rare phenomenon that only occurs when wet snow falls on an icy surface with gusty winds. The gusty winds lift up the snow and start it rolling and then the snow accumulates like rolling a snowball. A down hill slope seems to help the process.
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I had seem them before, but didn't have a camera with me.

[Jay Jolliffe]

Snow tumble weeds....How cool

[Jerome Stanek]

We have a bunch of them here

[Jim Rimmer]

Cool. Thanks for posting the pics.

[Mel Fulks]

Yeah that is quite a phenomenon. I think that might be the origin of the song FROSTY THE SNOWMAN. People of the 1940s
were way behind us on science!

[Rod Sheridan]

Really neat photo, thanks for posting.

Here's another snow photo, taken west of the earth station I'm at this week.............Rod281042

[Dan Hintz]

I can do ya one better, Rod... at the 0:15 mark things get really interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxtCntPsOGE

[Jerome Stanek]

I can do ya one better, Rod... at the 0:15 mark things get really interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxtCntPsOGE


It's just a red yellow flashing snow blowing machine the Japanese have better safety equipment.

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[Dave Richards]

After the snow on Friday night and the high winds over the weekend, we've had small ones of the rollers in our front lawn. The surface of the snow was packed by the wind hard enough the little dogs can walk on it. With those little snow boulders yard looks like the surface of the moon or something.

I could have used that snow blower on my driveway last year. So far this year I've only used the blower once a couple of weeks ago. Most of the time when it has snowed it was so cold the snow was light and easy to move with a shovel.

[Shawn Pixley]

I don't like snow, but that is kewl!

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Those are neat, I've seen them start on steep slopes, bet never on the flat like that. One of my daughters called them snow snails several years back, which stuck.

[Charles McKinley]

The night they showed up here it went up to 35 degrees from the extreme cold of the day and the wind sounded like a freight train.

No one around here can ever remember seeing them before. I even consulted some octogenarians that I thought had seen pretty much everything around here.

Very cool though with the hole in the middle. I'm supprised they lasted as long as they did as they are quite fragile when touched.

[Lee Schierer]

The night they showed up here it went up to 35 degrees from the extreme cold of the day and the wind sounded like a freight train.

No one around here can ever remember seeing them before. I even consulted some octogenarians that I thought had seen pretty much everything around here.

Very cool though with the hole in the middle. I'm supprised they lasted as long as they did as they are quite fragile when touched.

Apparently they aren't always fragile. 281234 These people were able to gather and stack them.

[Jim Matthews]

Those aren't formed by wind, that's an old meteorologist's tale.

These are what happens when Snowmen spontaneously combust.

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Lee that is a great picture. Every one I tried picking up turned to powder. I told my girls to put it in their journals they may not see them again for a long time.