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| December 14, 2019 |
At 2 p. m. begins to snow again. I walk to Walden.
Snow-storms might be classified.
- This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face, almost as much so as sand. It is cold also. It is drifting but not accumulating fast. I can see the woods about a quarter of a mile distant through it.
- That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, — the regular snow-storm such as is painted. A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused. The snow was a little moist and the weather rather mild.
- Also I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six (?)-rayed wheel. This must be the chef-d'oeuvre of the Genius of the storm.
- Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot. This, I think, belongs to cold weather. Probably never have much of it.
- Also there is sleet, which is half snow, half rain.
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| Pellet snow. December 19, 2015 |
The Juncus tenuis, with its conspicuous acheniums, is very noticeable now, rising above the snow in the wood-paths, commonly aslant.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 14, 1859
This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face . See December 23, 1851 ("This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally,”); December 29, 1853 ("Wind from the north blows the snow almost horizontally, and, beside freezing you, almost takes your breath away. The driving snow blinds you.”); December 25, 1855 ("Snow driving almost horizontally from the northeast and fast whitening the ground . . .”); January 19, 1857 ("A snow-storm with very high wind all last night and to-day. . . .A fine dry snow, intolerable to face"); January 4, 1859 ("A north snow-storm, very hard to face. It snows very hard, driving along almost horizontally.”)
That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air. See December 11, 1859 (“Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging”); December 20, 1859("December. 11th was a lodging snow, it being mild and still,”); See also December 26, 1853 ("It has fallen so gently that it forms an upright wall on the slenderest twig”); December 24, 1856 ("The snow collects and is piled up in little columns like down about every twig and stem, and this is only seen in perfection, complete to the last flake, while it is snowing, as now.”); March 2, 1858 (“The snow is quite soft or damp, lodging in perpendicular walls on the limbs, white on black.”)
A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused. See December 15, 1855 ("Flakes come down from one side and some from another, crossing each other like woof and warp apparently, as they are falling in different eddies and currents of air. “)
The perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six-rayed wheel. See January 14, 1853 (" Examined closely, the flakes are beautifully regular six-rayed stars or wheels with a centre disk, perfect geometrical figures in thin scales far more perfect than I can draw."); December 14, 1855 ("Looking more closely at the light snow... I found that it was sprinkled all over ... with regular star-shaped cottony flakes with six points, about an eighth of an inch in diameter and on an average a half an inch apart. It snowed geometry.”); January 5, 1856 ("The thin snow now driving from the north and lodging on my coat consists of those beautiful star crystals, . . . thin and partly transparent . . ., perfect little wheels with six spokes . . .countless snow-stars comes whirling to earth, pronouncing thus, with emphasis, the number six”); January 12, 1860 ("When I look closely it seems to be chiefly composed of crystals in which the six rays or leafets are more or less perfect, . . . and, going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over its surface, — little mirror-like facets, which on examination I find to be one of those star wheels (more or less entire) from an eighth to a third of an inch in diameter, which has fallen in the proper position, reflecting an intensely bright little sun, “)
The pellet or shot snow. See January 30, 1856 (“It has just begun to snow, — those little round dry pellets like shot. ”); November 24, 1860 (“ The first spitting of snow. . .consisted almost entirely of pellets an eighth of an inch or less in diameter. These drove along almost horizontally, or curving upward like the outline of a breaker, before the strong and chilling wind. . . .T he air was so filled with these snow pellets that for an hour we could not see a hill half a mile off”)
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