Snow arrives early in Shoreline

Graupel preceded the snowfall
Photo by Diane Hettrick

Shoreline 1:20pm Feb 3

By Diane Hettrick

We just had a dramatic event in north Shoreline but if you were in the other room you probably missed it.

Heavy "snow" fell from the sky for several minutes. When I went to take photos, I found that it was graupel.

There was a pause and then it actually started snowing.

Graupel is the term for ice pellets.

"...soft hail or snow pellets, is precipitation that forms when supercooled water droplets are collected and freeze on falling snowflakes, forming 2–5 mm (0.08–0.20 in) balls of rime." --Wikipedia