I figured I better post this before it's in the 80's and 90's, ha. Plus I thought those of you in the North and East might get a kick out of our 'snow'. So the other morning, on one of our 'warned' days of freezing weather, most of Houston woke up to this. Odd, little, white balls of Winter stuff. Snow? Sleet? Hail? Dippin Dots? (more on that later). No, this is something called "GRAUPEL". What? I know, us too, we've never heard of that.
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| What the heck is graupel? |
It's apparently a Winter precipitation phenomenon that occurs when supercooled droplets of water collect and freeze ON a snowflake. Who knew?
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| Graupel closeup |
Tiny little white balls of hardened snow.
It was actually kind of neat to see.
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| Graupel in Houston |
As you can see above, when they started collect in one spot, it did look more like an odd type of snow...or maybe it looks like...
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| Dippin' Dots Ice Cream, image courtesy of www.dippindots.com |
...Dippin' Dots!! If only it would do this next time! For those who haven't ever seen it, Dippin' Dots is a wonderfully fun ice cream that is often called the "ice cream of the future". It's flash frozen in liquid nitrogen which creates these little balls of ice cream that just melt in your mouth.
Still it was the first time in all the years I've lived here that I've seen 'graupel'. Don't get me wrong, we have had lots of ice and sleet and some teen temps already this Winter, but this stuff is a first for us.
Learn something new every day huh?
We get graupel here in Colorado fairly often, but I am ALWAYS reminded of Dippin Dots everytime I see it!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know what caused it though. That's pretty neat info to have.
It was a first for us to see. It was kind of cool. There were places in town where it really accumulated and it was crazy looking. Is nice learning something new and different huh?
Deleteit looks like a bean bag exploded. my kids used to love dippin dots.
ReplyDeleteNow THAT is a good description too! It does doesn't it? Don't ask me how I know, LOL!
DeleteSo that's what it was! I had some and was thinking "snow clusters?" I do wish they'd named it something easier to remember....
ReplyDeleteI know right? I didn't even know what to call it until I saw the news on tv after getting home from work. They printed it on screen (or I would have never known the name, ha) so I had to google it. It does need a 'sexier' name huh?
Deletewell - you DO learn something new every day - didn't know it was called "graupel" .we get it lots in fall and spring and call it styrofoam snow 'cause it looks like busted up , uh, styrofoam ;-))
ReplyDeletethat ice cream looks a bit skeery for me - lol!
hugs from us to the two of you ;-)))))))
Yep, always a good day with something new to learn huh? Ha. I do like that, styrofoam snow...hey, maybe we could shorten it to "styro snow"?
DeleteDippin Dots ice cream is SO good. the cool thing is you could mix up flavors so easily.
Big WARM hugs to you both!
Very interesting. Glad you got some snow. I'm sure there are many willing to share their snow with you.
ReplyDeleteHave a great evening.
Yes, I'm sure there are plenty out there ready to ship it off to the South because they are sick of it. It's been a crazy winter everywhere. I blame it all on the groundhog, LOL!
DeleteCrazy but cool!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely!!!
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