Anyone here from Western New York who remembers "blue snow"?

[hedgehog]

My husband grew up in a small town south of Buffalo. He recalls being kept inside for a few days because of blue snow falling. He thinks it was fallout from a nuclear test out West. This would have been in the 50's.

[leveymg]

1. Google has a book reference:

#
America's nuclear legacy - Google Books Result
by Wayne D. LeBaron - 1998 - History - 320 pages
nuclear testing program in regard to the harmful effect of fallout resulting ... BLUE SNOW News reports have stated that radioactive fallout from a Nevada ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=1560725567... -
#
B

[hedgehog]

2. That confirms a blue snow reference to nuclear fallout; I wonder

what caused the blue color? What most people don't know is that a lot of fallout came down over New York State following tests out West - including the first Trinity test!

http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/box7_5.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/18/nyregion/book-examines-nevada-test-that-left-fallout-in-troy-ny.html

I'm trying to track down a specific event in the Buffalo, new York area.

[leveymg]

8. Go to the archives of the local newspapers on microfisch at the local libraries.

They'll have stories indexed on that.

[Retrograde]

3. I was there in the 50s

But don't remember any blue snow. Of course, I was very young at the time. The area just south of Buffalo does get a lot of snow, though, even when the rest of the area is dry.

[hedgehog]

4. From what I can gather, radioactive debris that was thrown high into

the atmosphere came down over parts of New York State in our typical lake squalls several times. Being the 50's, no one was supposed to notice.

[Possumpoint]

5. Only Blue Snow I Remember

in Kensington, Md was a late season snow about March 1958 that was very wet. Brought down lots of tree limbs and electric lines. You could push a yard stick into the snow and see the blue color. We had no power for three weeks. My parents joked about there wasn't anything else to do so there was a baby boom the following December.

[hedgehog]

6. Hmmmmm.... If small particles of fallout served as nuclei to

precipitate the snow fall..... I'm assuming a heavy wet March snowfall would have been an unusual event in Maryland back then.

[elocs]

7. I was born in western NY in '52 in a small town call Westfield on Lake Erie.

Unfortunately I didn't live there long and remember nothing about it. My mother might except she has Alzheimer's and doesn't remember me.

[Nikki Stone1]

9. We have DU thread on related stuff

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4113219