When I went out to walk the dog this morning, here's what I found on my patio -- Graupel : "precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water condense on a snowflake, forming a 2–5 mm ball of rime ice; the snowflake acts as a nucleus of condensation in this process." Graupel looks like the remains of a crumbled styrofoam cup, it crunches under your shoes, and it sizzles when it comes down, like cold french fries going into a deep fat fryer.
The "100 names for snow" of the Inuit is supposed to be a canard, but reading "Smilla's Sense of Snow" illuminated a few of the names they have for different types of ice. Do you know any more of the names for different types of precipitation, frozen or not?
Ain't the intertubes grand?
Ooops forgot the link.
had there been any reports of lightning in the area?
cool!