In "Mother Tongue" Bill Bryson wrote
"The Eskimos, as it is well known, have fifty words for types of snow - though curiously no word for just plain snow"
Today I was thinking about this as I was walking from the bus stop...
The snow that falls can be big & fluffy or so fine that it simply glitters in the subshine, it can be wet & sloppy or dry & sharp (especially in the cold wind), and once it's on the ground it changes over time - fluffy, settled, compressed, ice, melted, ice crystals as it refreezes, crunchy as it breaks up again, slushy as it melts, just plain wet snow.... and the colours.... white (of course), yellow (avoid that one), brown (avoid that, too!), various shades of grey through to black. I think someone has been dropping red napkins near the school as there are red patches of ice along the pavement...
Of course at this time of year, it is also full of grit. As I walked across the Market Square yesterday it was impossible to tell that it is cobbled. The months of grit left behind as the snow & ice are melting is so deep you cannot tell what the surface beneath might be. The same is true on all the other surfaces, too. It feels odd to walk on solid ground - you can miss the crunch beneath your feet.
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| as the melt water drains, you can see thelayers beneath your feet |
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| the footpath/pavement is lined with the snow ploughed from the road and the pavement (and the grit therein!) |
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| the surface of the snow is pitted at the snow beneath starts to melt & drain |
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| the strata of snow, ice & grit tracking the winter's progress |
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| on the roadside, the snow is pitted from detritus flung at it by passing cars |
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| this particular pile of ploughed snow is over 5ft high! and you can see from the figure at the top, that it has already melted about 6ins! |
