Saturday, February 5, 2022

SNOW ROLLERS

      I have spent 82 winters in the snow and I have never seen a snow roller. You say, "What are snow rollers?" Well snow rollers are when certain conditions are met and snow automatically forms a snow ball. Wind, temperature and snow conditions have to be just right for the little snow ball to form. So it's like when kids rolled up a big snowball to make a snow man. 


        
       Kids in my area still make snow men. 

      This morning the temperature was plus 2 C, there was a high wind and our top layer of snow was soft and light.  When I looked out there were many tennis sized balls of snow. The weight of the snow limits the size of the roller. The snow stops rolling when the ball of snow gets too heavy or rolls into a place that is partly sheltered from the wind. 



       Light conditions this morning made it very difficult to get photos. Most of these rollers were about tennis ball size. 

    In the mountains these snow balls or snow rollers can get to be very large diameter about one meter. They usually form above the tree line where there is lots of fresh snow and it it can become very windy. Then if the snow roller happens to catch a slope to roll down it can get quite large. 

    So this morning was a first for my 82 years.