Usually when I am visiting and it snows, it happens overnight and I awaken to a world blanketed in white. Which is fine and I love, but I have wondered what it looks like when it actually snows. Today I got my answer.
It is snowing a nice, steady amount. Small flakes, few of which are bigger than the tip of my pinky finger. However, there are so many of the flakes falling and swirling and dancing on the breezes that they are quickly coating everything in a fine dusting of the powder.
What I am surprised at the most is how the snow falls. Rain always falls in pretty steady sheets where I'm from. It is either raining or not and the rain falls straight down unless there is wind. If there is wind, all of the rain falls in pretty much the same slant based on the strength of that wind.
The snow falls in eddies and whirls. As I look out the window, the snow right outside it may be falling straight down, but in the near distance I can see snow falling the opposite direction, some more swirling a little farther away, and still more falling in other directions or even being gusted upwards. Occasionally I see the snow make a "snow devil," or at least something roughly equivalent to the dust devils I'm used to seeing out in the desert.
I am also surprised at the quiet. Again, I'm used to rain. When it rains, it tends to pour. So there is the rat-atat-tat of the rain drops on the windows, metal surfaces, roof, etc. around me. The splashing sounds as it makes pools and then splashes into them. But the snow, excepting the occasional gust of wind that I can hear, falls nearly noiselessly.
It is fun to watch, here in the office with a fire burning and some hot cocoa warming my belly.
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