The oddest kind of "snow" is falling in Seattle right now.... [View All]

[TechBear_Seattle]

I've seen snow: small, sharp flakes when it's cold; large, fluffy flakes when it's warm.

I know what sleet is: irregularly shaped clumps of half-frozen wetness that forms when it is almost but not quite cold enough for snow.

And of course, I'm familiar with hail: pellets of ice that form as raindrops repeatedly freeze.

But this... I have no name for it. What is falling is round like hail, but made up of individual snowflakes that have not frozen together or partially thawed like you would find in sleet. They are fluffy snowballs ranging in size between a sesame seed and a coriander seed. In my 12 years in Washington, I have never seen the like.