Winter Weather Glossary

Yesterday we discussed the terms used in describing winter ice. Today, here are more winter weather terms worth noting – if you live in the Northern states, you’ll hear many of these this winter. In fact there is talk of a blizzard this weekend for the Mid- Atlantic States.

Blizzard – a violent winter storm with winds above 32 mph/51 kph, and visibility less than 500 feet/ 150 meters because of falling and bowing snow. Sometimes the term, ground blizzard, is used to describe a storm in which all the airborne snow has been resuspended from what had previously fallen.

Cold wave – An abrupt onset of unusually cold weather; a rapid fall in temperature within 24 hours.

Hail – Precipitation in the form of balls or lumps of ice, having a diameter of 5 millimeters or greater. Anything smaller is referred to as ice pellets.

Whiteout An optical phenomenon that is produced when a uniform cloud cover forms over an unbroken cover, with these conditions all sense of depth and orientation is lost in a uniformity white glow. More commonly, we refer to a white out as the condition when driving that the snow drives at you horizontally with such speed and density that you can’t see the road. Essentially, you are blinded by the white.

Windchill Index – The cooling effect of any combination of temperature and wind. Originally developed in 1939 by Paul Sipel, an expert on climate conditions, it has been recalculated in recent years to better conform to actual observed outdoor conditions. Here is the latest windchill chart from NOAA.

Technorati Tags:
blizzard, cold wave, windchill index, Farmers’ Almanac