Winter's Last Snow

Even though the calendar said it was spring this week, Mother Nature didn't want to give up on winter and brought us a last minute snow storm.

Tuesday, the last day of winter, started with a mix of graupel and rain. What is graupel, you say? I'd never heard of it either, having grown up in Southern California. It's crisp, white ice particles that are precursors to snow. In a way, they look like tiny bits of hail.

Graupel falls with more force than snow, almost like mini-hail. You could see it bounce on the deck, but unlike hail, it's not associated with thunderstorms. As rain falls through colder air near the surface it freezes to form graupel.

Two books you might like to read about weather along the Strait of Georgia region are The Wind Came All Ways and Living with Weather Along the BC Coast, both written by Owen S. Lange. They're both available at Amazon or local bookstores including Coles.

I'm not really complaining. When we lived in Los Angeles, we never got to experience distinct seasons. Now that we live in Coastal BC, we are get all kinds of weather. So bring it on, Mother Nature. -- Margy