Yesterday my weather app said that we were getting heavy snow. What was falling from the sky is not what I call snow. It made a “tink” noise as it hit the ground and bounced… then stuck. In the morning it looked like we had and inch of snow on the ground, but it was completely solid and could hold weight, no footprints in this accumulation. The National Weather Service describes sleet as frozen raindrops that bounce. The Farmer’s Almanac says sleet is rain mixed with snow. (They also have an article on all the words for snow. Cool.) But none of that adequately describes what was happening here. I think the best term is “ice storm”. I have seen ice accumulation before, but not where the ice layer can be measured in inches. There was a pile of the stuff out our front door that could hold my weight.

I was able to pick up a bit that was on an outside cat hammock, and when I zoomed in I could see the tiny, tiny round ice. No crystals at all.

It did eventually start to snow for real, all on top of that thick, thick ice.