Weather Nazis Insist It's Not Snowing in Phoenix -- It's 'Graupel'

Weather Nazis Insist It's Not Snowing in Phoenix -- It's "Graupel"

By Matthew Hendley Wed., Feb. 20 2013 at 4:01 PM

zazzle.com

Put your graupel boots on, folks.

Excuuuse all of us who thought it's been snowing in Phoenix this afternoon.

According to the weather Nazis -- by "weather Nazis," we mean every meteorologist in the Valley, as well as the National Weather Service -- it's some substance called "graupel" that's dropping in Phoenix.

To our dismay, this is not a made-up word that our goofy local weathermen are using -- this appears to check out.

"With the low freezing levels...these showers will be capable of producing small ice pellets known as graupel, similar to hail and sleet," according to a statement from the National Weather Service. "These ice pellets could also cause roads to become slick in isolated spots.

The National Weather Service in Phoenix says the "graupel showers" -- a phrase we're committed to never using again -- will continue in Phoenix through the "PM commute," which sounds a lot like, around 6 or 7 or something, maybe.

Whatever, dudes. It does appear to actually be snowing just about everywhere else, though.

Tucson has been getting actual snow today, so much that the Accenture Match Play Championship in Marana, which features many of the big names in golf, was canceled due to the Arizona equivalent of a shit-load of snow.

via Mike Seidel

Well, it was live, like, three hours ago.

And, as you would expect, Flagstaff's getting a bunch of snow, too, but so are higher-elevation places around the Valley.

Below, check out the picture below from the Arizona Department of Transportation, of the Superstition Mountains, which was taken from Mesa.

ADOT

With that, we're done talking about the weather for the next month. Enjoy your "graupel."

UPDATE 4:06 p.m.: One last point -- how is this not snow? This is the Loop 101 and Via de Ventura in Scottsdale:

ADOT

Tags:

arizona, phoenix, snow, weather

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ekfosstorm

I agree that "graupel" is an ugly word, but, for meteorologists, it is an important word. Graupel, or "soft hail", is a type of frozen precipitation which grows within thunderstorms as small ice crystals fall through a layer of suppercooled water droplets. Supercooled water droplets are tiny liquid particles that exist below the freezing point of water. When a supercooled droplet collides with an ice crystal, it instantly freezes on contact onto the surface of the crystal. Eventuall, after millions of collisions, the ice crystal is plastered with tiny frozen water droplets and falls out of the storm as a millimeter sized pellet that resembles the small styrofoam balls that filled 1970 era bean bag chairs. In the summer, the graupel melts on it way to the ground and becomes rain, while in the winter it may remain frozen and reach the ground unaffetced. What is so important about graupel to atmospheric scientists is that their growth within thunderstorms is intimately linked to storm electrification and lightning. Without graupel, there would be no lightning or thunder,

Rob134

Well, those of us from colder climates know what snow is, and that it has to be below 32 to snow (sometimes a little warmer, in the right atmospheric conditions). But it's so annoying when Arizonans, who think anything below 60 is cold, think it's snowing when it's above 40 degrees. Where I live, it was 52, and I heard people saying they saw it snowing.

saltywench

1 Like

@Rob134 Excuse me, Mr. Sanctimonious... anything under 70 is cold.

DNichols

1 Like

I thought about going to work late this morning, and saying that I got stuck behind a "Graupel Plow" in Gilbert?

kspidel moderator communitymanager

2 Like

I saw someone making a graupel man and graupel angels. #rebels

jmoriarty

2 Like

@kspidel I just worry when I see some dude coming at me with a big pair of graupel balls.

austinmbaker

1 Like

@jmoriarty @kspidel Graupel Showers and haboobs. Look at us, a goddam meteorological oddity.

ptcgaz

1 Like

BTW it snowed here in Black Canyon City.. Yes it was actual snow. I have been in snow before. I was in the storm that dumped 44 inches of snow on my town in SE PA.

As for what people say in Arizona about weather makes me wonder IF all of you got your education here.

JohnQ.Public topcommenter

1 Like

Can we save the word "Nazi" for people actually engaged in genocide, and not people who insist on using a technical term instead of common parlance.

jmoriarty

1 Like

@JohnQ.Public What are you, some kind of Nazi Nazi?

danthol

1 Like

@jmoriarty @JohnQ.Public NO SNOW FOR YOU!

arizonaeagletarian

2 Like

@JohnQ.Public Shouldn't you have had a question mark at the end of your sentence? ;)

JohnQ.Public topcommenter

@arizonaeagletarian @JohnQ.Public Should I have had a question mark? Feel better?

arizonaeagletarian

@JohnQ.Public Did you notice the ;) ?? I figured the irony in my calling attention to the question of whether you meant to use a question mark might amuse you. Didn't mean to offend. :)