Questions & Answers

Snow vocabulary

Snow vocabulary

by Elena Saltikoff -
Number of replies: 2
Hello, this is Elena from Finland. I will talk at the Warm front lecture in a couple of weeks. Now I thought you guys would be the right community to ask some questions about words related to snow.

  1. "Lake effect snow" - probably named after the Great Lakes of North America. Here in Scandinavia we have a lot of it at the sea areas (lake of Finland are shallow and freeze so early, that "sea effect snow "is more common). I noticed the Germans use the English word - do the other languages have their own word for it ?
  2. "Grit. " (Small particles of snow, spread to roads to add friction. Works in temperatures when salt does not, and forms less clumps than sand). I lived in UK and there the even say "All those gritters - it's not cold." But colleagues in USA and in some pars of UK had never seen it. Do they use it in your parts of world and do they call it with other words ?
  3. "Snirt." When snow, grit, sand and dirt mix to beige, disgusting mass, the colleagues in Boulder call it snirt. Is this local joke or more common word ?
  4. "Polanne." (That is a Finnish word.) When cars (or people) pack snow to road surface so that it becomes almost like ice, hard and very slippery. (Opposite of powder snow). Glaciologists say neve and firn. Any common terms ?
This is not directly related to the class, this is almost misuse of this meadia, so consider this as talk we would have during a coffee break of the class.

Best regards, Elena

In reply to Elena Saltikoff

Re: Snow vocabulary

by Birgitte Knudsen -

Hi Elena,

You will have my answers here anyway.

Nearly none of is in use in the forecasting office in Denmark.

Ad. 1: We don´t use "lake effect snow" - but actually use some kind of "sea effect snow" because we name the showers of snow after the particular sea, that developed them - for example: "Kattegat snow showers" and "Baltic Sea snow showers".

Ad. 2: Have never heard of it. In Denmark only salt is used on the roads. In the airports I recall them using something called UREA... or?

Ad. 3: Maybe we should adobt a word for it!

Ad. 4: The only one I know, is the glaciologist term "firn", but no special word is used for this either in the forecasting office.

Best regards,

Birgitte

In reply to Elena Saltikoff

Re: Snow vocabulary

by weiqing zhang -

Hi Elena,

We do use “Lake effect snow” and “Lake enhanced snow” as well in my office (Ontario Storm Prediction Center), but I am sorry that I never heard any of the other three words.

Beast regards,

Weiqing