I can't see the city for the snow

Today, looking at the city of Pittsburgh from my perch on Grandview is like looking through a thin piece of gauze. The snow is coming down in fat swirling pats of white, so that the buildings are hazy and indistinct. It’s almost like a heavy fog has settled over the city. When I look directly up into the solely white sky, the flakes seem to come from nowhere, emerging and then falling in a lazy descent. I try to follow one, or many, to the ground, where light and fluffy the snow has accumulated to at least 4 inches. But each flake disappears into the layered snow, as mysteriously as it came from above.

I think that winter is the season when water slows down. In the spring, summer and fall, water is a fast, rushing force – it comes in downpours and flashfloods; it can overflow rivers and wash away mountainsides. But in winter, water is different. It changes form. It is snow. It is ice. As if winter is water’s season to meditate – two hydrogen, one oxygen – slowing down; three molecules trying out a different design. It doesn’t lose its elemental power, but it makes a different show of things.

I think of meditation because these flakes fall slowly; they drift to the ground without any apparent need to hurry, to get to the ground. If it was warmer outside, these intricate little flakes would be solid drops, racing to hit the pavement, wet the soil, fill the rust-colored river below. But not snow. Even the way it piles up seems egoless, in a way. When it lands and collects with the rest of the snow, I hardly can distinguish when it disappears. It doesn’t make ripples along a surface; it doesn’t make a sound.

Behind me is a large downspout exhibiting a giant, frozen cascade. The underbelly is almost blue it is so thick – like glacier ice. It looks exactly like an explosion of water, touched by a freezing wand. Stand still, is the command. I have a vague recollection of a fairytale in which a man is turned into a tree. If winter is a water meditation, what is that its telling me through its snow?

I take a deep breath and two black crows slip across the white-out. They cross from right to left, as if they are trying to start over and reread the sky. When they are gone, I put my hand in a pile of snow and brush it easily from the railing where I stand. This is fluffy snow. I know, without thinking, that it is bad for making snowballs but good for easy shoveling. It is the kind of snow that comes down in flakes big enough that when you look up close, you can see their intricate designs. The nature of this is like a night sky full of stars – you can help but wonder about infinity.

But this snow is not like yesterday’s snow. Or even the day before. These weeks have  held wet, heavy slush snow. Dry, tiny balls of snow. The kind that blows away like dust; pings against your windshield as you drive. The kind you know will turn to ice. But what are the names of this snow? Instead of a field guide to birds or trees or wildflowers, I want to identify the terms of this water turned cold, turned into snow.

Champagne powder, corn, slush, firn, snirt, watermelon snow, zastrugi, surface hoar, finger drift, blowing snow, penitentes, ice, packed powder, packing snow, crud, crust, depth hoar.

Some beautiful, some ugly. All curious and fascinating. These are our names for snow. Interestingly, some of the words describe the individual flakes of snow, like depth hoar: a faceted snow crystal, usually poorly or completely unbonded to adjacent crystals, which creates a weak zone in the snowpack. Some describe the snow as its collective. A pillow drift: A snow drift crossing a roadway and usually 3 to 4.5 metres (10–15 feet) in width and 30 cm to 90 cm (1–3 feet) in depth. Or a finger drift: A narrow snow drift (30 cm to 1 metre in width) crossing a roadway. Several finger drifts in succession resemble the fingers of a hand.

My two favorites?

Snirt: the term for snow covered in dirt… and,

Watermelon snow: A snow colored pink by a species of green algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis, it contains a secondary red carotenoid pigment (astaxanthin) in addition to chlorophyll. It thrives in alpine and coastal polar regions and unlike most species of fresh-water algae, it is cryophilic and thrives in freezing water. It was written about as early as Aristotle.

(All information gathered about snow can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_snow)