Wind-blown Snow as a Water Resource
Basics of Blizzards and Snowdrift Control
More Blizzard Basics
Here's a closer look at one ingredient of a blizzard--the snow. In big
blizzards, the wind mixes new ice crystals falling from clouds (snowflakes)
with ice grains picked up near the ground. Wind-driven snowflakes shatter
when they hit the snow on the ground. Fragments that bounce downwind are
hammered into rounded grains. The process not only makes the drifting grains
much smaller, it greatly increases the ice surface exposed to evaporation.
These photographs, on a 2-mm grid, compare new snowflakes with the much
smaller drifting grains.
To Blizzard Basics