I looked up ‘snow squall’ on Google, more for the correct spelling of ‘squall’ than the meaning, but Wikipedia had a definition that matched my experience while cross country skiing today.
‘A snowsquall, or snow squall, is a sudden moderately heavy snowfall with blowing snow and strong, gusty surface winds. It is often referred to as a whiteout and is similar to a blizzard but is localized in time or in location and snow accumulations may or may not be significant.’
That pretty much describes it.
We started skiing under blue skies. Within 15 minutes the scene looked like the photo above. The sky dumped big, white flakes and whipped wind for about an hour. There must have been over an inch of fresh snow on the trails.
We finished skiing and started to head back to Nelson on the highway, and not three minutes down the road, the snow stopped, the sky was blue once again, and the road was totally dry as though nothing had happened.
Pretty strange. But fun to ski in!
