Graupel, And Persimmons! A Great Winter Day!

That's right, today we seen our first flakes of the season! This form of snow you see in the above picture is actually called graupel. Graupel forms when snow in the atmosphere encounters supercooled water. In a process known as accretion, ice crystals form instantly on the outside of the snow and accumulate until the original snowflake is no longer visible or distinguishable.

The coating of these ice crystals on the outside of the snow is called a rime coating. Now I know this looks a lot like sleet or hail! So how can you tell the difference? To tell the difference between graupel and hail, you simply have to touch a graupel ball. Graupel pellets typically fall apart when touched or when they hit the ground. Hail is formed when layers of ice accumulate and are very hard as a result.

And if you don't feel like calling it "Graupel" no problem! lol its also more commonly known as snow pellets, soft hail, small hail, tapioca snow, rimed snow, and or ice balls. lol.

You can see in this wide range radar image above taken at 3:26pm earlier this afternoon that the snow was so light radar had a hard time picking it up! Take a look at this closer image below.

Here is the local radar image also taken at 3:26pm earlier this afternoon. Lots of wide spread scattered snow flurries across the area. Temperatures did peak at a high of 40* degrees however not long before falling back into the middle 30s! A cold winter like day indeed..

Quick Cast.....

Tonight we will continue to see partly cloudy / mostly clear skies which will allow us to cool off big time as the night goes on!!! I'm talking about lows tonight in the 20s! 26* degrees! So be sure to bundle up as you head out in the early morning hours.

Friday we will see partly cloudy skies across the area with a high around 50* degrees and a low that night around 37* degrees. Winds between 10 and 15 mph.

We will see highs around 60* degrees as we head into the weekend, however average weather returns by the start of next week with 50s back in the forecast. November is going to be our up and down month temperature - wise.

With that said, I have more info about the winter ahead. If you remember in my last post we talked about what the weather models expect this winter to be like. As well as what Nature's signs have to say about things. And the two disagree on the forecast. Well I have another big nature sign for this winter! Take a look.

That's right! Persimmons!! It is said that if you cut open the seeds of a persimmon and find a spoon shape then you're going to have a winter full of shoveling heavy wet snow!! With that said, I have a report from someone out of Parke county below.

"I cut 6 seeds open yesterday and they all had very defined spoons in them. I picked the persimmons in Parke County, Indiana. I live in Vermillion County which is less than 10 miles from my home".

Yes, its another point for nature! All her signs are pointing to a cold snowy winter! Which leaves me to ask you one question! (Which side do you believe?) Nature? or the Weather Models?. I'm going with nature! There are just to many signs to dismiss, I'll have my shovel handy! :)