Strange snow event around here!

[Gary R]

Something weird happened over Sunday night. Sunday evening was in the teen's. It warmed up above freezing over night but was back down in the teens by daybreak Monday. It was windy and snow throughout that time. We were up at 6AM and looked outside. There were hundreds of balls of snow in our yard. Some of them almost as big as a five gallon bucket! We weren't sure what happened. I drove nearly 100 miles on I-80 Monday and saw similar things everywhere. We realized that the wind must have rolled this snow up. Some of the you can see a hole through the middle. At that time there was no snow disturbance around them. It looked like they were just placed there. Does any know what this phenomenon is called?8553

[BlueberryHill]

They are called snow rollers. Very cool, very rare. I have never seen them in real life. Conditions have to be perfect.

[happy thoughts]

That's very neat. It appears they're called snow rollers and are rare. Found an article about them forming in the midwest just yesterday
http://www.inquisitr.com/1110326/extreme-weather-causes-snow-rollers-throughout-the-midwest/

Thanks for sharing!

[heus]

They are all over the place around us. Very neat

[Lethalbowman]

We had them here in Northern Michigan a few weeks ago when it actually got warm enough one day for some of the snow to melt & then freeze as it was windy.

[Gary R]

Thanks for the link to that article.

[heus]

http://www.cleveland.com/living/index.ssf/2014/01/rare_snow_rollers_form_in_nort.html#incart_river_d efault#incart_m-rpt-2

[Dennis H.]

That is very cool.

[RC Maple]

There was a picture of one of those on the front page of our paper - sorry not savvy enough to do a link. I see Heus got that done though.

[Dan W]

Gary, I think they be the work of aliens! I saw some of them on Monday morning in the dark and wondered where all of the snowballs came from. Somebody at work saw one of the articles and then I knew what they were. Saw lots more on the way home that day in several different areas. Way cool though.

[Run Forest Run!]

That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Thanks so much for sharing your picture and your story Gary. I can't believe that I'd never heard of that before.

[sugarsand]

We the perfect conditions for these snowballs one year. The wind blew so hard they were piled right up in the fields, we had snowmen everyplace.:lol: