At a recent Knitting Circle another lady new to town (from Texas) had done some research to find out about something that falls from the sky here. It's not rain, and it's not snow, and it's not sleet. They are about the size of small BB's; basically, they are tiny little white balls of frozen water, but unlike hail or sleet, they are soft and squishy when pinched. They are GRAUPELs.
You can read all about Graupel on Wikipedia, and even see microscopic pictures of the things.
If you're like me and can't figure out how to say "graupel", then, head over to Merriam-Webster Online, and click on the speaker by the word.
Or you can just say "soft hail", but I think it's much more fun to learn the "real word" and use it, especially if no one else knows what it is and then you can pretend you're a human dictionary and tell them all about it. :D
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2 comments:
Being from Alabama, all things snow related are facinating to me, except having to actually deal with real snow. Very interesting. Hope you had a great Mother's Day! I'm trying to catch up on all of your past blogs, but I have to actually work sometimes. Thanks for your comments; I hope you keep reading. It's nice to know that someone other than my mom & aunts read my blog.--Laura aka Me from Purse Full of Curlers.
Very interesting! When my daughter was younger she used to call it "frizzle"! We get a lot of freezing-rain/snowy-sleet around here and my brother in law is a pseudo-meteorologist, so I'll be sure to casually slip it into our next conversation!
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