Different Types of Snow to Watch Out For

Posted on October 23, 2014 by SnowBlowerSource

If you’re like most people, you’ll usually be exposed to one of three different types of white stuff falling from the sky: sleet/hail, heavy wet snow, thin powdery snow. They’re by far the most common types of snow you can encounter, but certainly not at all the entire spectrum of snow that exists. Depending on humidity, temperature and geographic region, snow can take a variety of different shapes and sizes. Snow Blower Source takes a look at what they are, even if the chances of finding it in your backyard are pretty slim. But for all the regular types of snow out there, you can bet our Toro single stage snow blowers can more than handle the job.

How Does it Snow? Let Me Count the Ways

To the untrained eye, snow is snow. It’s white, sticks together, and makes its way from up there to the ground. Sometimes it stays on the ground, and other times it melts away as soon as it lands. But according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, there are four different types of snow crystals, and according to ABC of Snowboarding, there are seven different ways it can land on your property.

Types of Snow Crystals

When precipitation gathers in the clouds, it keeps gathering until the cloud has become so heavy it has to let go. When that happens, these are the four different types of crystals it can let fall to the ground (check out CalTech for all the different types of snow crystals):

Snowflakes: Probably what you’re most familiar with, snowflakes are hexagonal and symmetrical, and are formed when water vapor sticks around a piece of debris in the air (e.g. dust). Depending on how long the water vapor has had to condense around the particle and the temperature in the air before it falls, snowflakes are anywhere from microscopic to a fraction of an inch big.

Polycrystals: These are the same as snowflakes, except the snowflakes are a collection of many different ice crystals that have stuck together (as opposed to water vapor condensing around one particle).

Graupel: It looks like a snow pellet, but it’s actually a bunch of snowflakes that have clumped together when falling through a supercooled cloud together with a coating of rime (the ice crystals on the outside). What’s neat about graupel is that they’re in liquid form, even though their temperature — and the temperature around them — is below freezing, which usually turns liquids to solids.

Hoarfrost: This is the kind of “snow” you spray on the insides of your windows at Christmas. It sits on surfaces like a powdery white substance, and takes this form when vapor goes right to the solid form, skipping the liquid phase altogether.

How Snow Looks When It Lands

Depending on what you read, snow takes on different appearances whether you consider it a snowfall, snow cover or snow formation. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll just talk about the middle one: snow cover (or, what it looks like when you wake up on that magical winter morning).

Powder: If you go skiing or snowboarding, powder snow can be very advantageous. It’s soft, thin and doesn’t clump together, and blows out of the way easily.

Crud: If you’ve ever been tobogganing on powder snow, then crud is what it looks like after a full day’s worth — full of grooved in tracks that are tough and hard, with higher powder on the sides.

Slush: As the sun hits the snow and begins to warm it, as well as the air temperature rising, then the snow starts to melt and become gloopy. It’s very wet and heavy.

Ice: Snow is essentially water, and when the temperature plummets enough, the thaw-freeze cycle makes the snow very hard. It’s not ice the way you know it in your freezer, but very similar. The top layers become very compacted together and very slippery, and it’s really hard to maintain any sort of grip on it.