Tuesday, February 9, 2016

And Today's Mystery Weather Is …

Greetings friends, fans and fellow science geeks. This is The Daily Bone and we're your inquisitive doggie reporters Chester L. W. Spaniel and Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. 


Loyal readers will know that we haven't exactly had much winter weather here in Western NY this year. Indeed, we've only had a few light snowfalls that never lasted long. But last night around 11:40PM ghostwriter took a picture of our garden Buddha (below.) She was very happy and imagined there would be a nice accumulation for us to run around the next morning. 


We did have some snow on the ground early this morning. 


Within an hour it was completely melted! 
But then, at precisely 12:15 PM we looked out and saw this: 


Ghostwriter ran right outside and started taking pictures! 


We thought it was hail at first. 


But upon closer inspection we discovered it was something called graupel. This is when snowflakes fall through very cold clouds and become coated with ice or rime. 


The resulting precipitation looks like tiny little styrofoam balls. It's light and bounces when it hits anything. 


But, as it's pretty warm out the graupel melted right away too! 

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the opossum that our North Carolina affiliate Angus B. Terrier found in his yard yesterday. Apparently Angus thought it was dead because it smelled awful. He proceeded to to try to acquire the scent on his own fur. His humans caught him, though and promptly gave him a bath! The animal control people came and took the opossum away. 
End of story. 


Sorry Angus! 


We'll keep you posted on our fickle weather. If anything else happens, you'll hear it first on The Daily Bone. See you soon! 


12 comments:

  1. nothing like a little to dampen the spirits :)

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  2. Weird weather! We have an inversion right now (a high is keeping the polluted air trapped near the ground and not allowing it to warm up) BUTT at our house (so far) we are above the inversion. So as long as we stay home it is nicer and sunny. BUTT as soon as we look at the valley it looks pretty bad.

    Keep Calm & Bark On!

    Murphy & Stanley

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  3. Crikey ..... how miserable does Angus look?? He looks a bit like that opossom thing himself, aye?? Graupel .... how come I've never heard of graupel? Sounds like something you'd eat. Still NO SNOW?? Crikey ..... you blokes must be spittin' chips.
    We're having some weather issues here too. We went to the beach this morning. It POURED. We got VERY wet. I ran away and hid under a tree. Mum and Dad got soaked. Mum had to take her clothes off to get in the car she was soooooooooooo wet. Lucky we had a towel, aye?? This rain is unusual. It only rains at night here!!

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  4. At least you got something. Even graupel would be better than nothing!!! We have cold and wind. Don't you think a little snow would be just the perfect addition?

    Woos - Ciara and Lightning

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  5. I don't think I've ever seen snow like that. Pretty cool! We got about an inch here, but Mom's inside with a bad headcold so Dad had to take me for a morning walk so I could roll in it.

    Abby Lab

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  6. You got the polystyrene snow, we often get that I do wish we'd get some PROPER snow to play in.
    I is glad to hear that Mr Opossum is being well look after…poor Angus, he was only being friendly and all he got fur his kindness was a BAFF!!!!
    Loves and licky kisses
    Princess Leah xxx

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  7. That is some crazy precipitation you all are getting!!
    Smileys!
    Dory, Jakey, Arty & Bilbo

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  8. We never heard of anything called a graupel, BOL
    Lily & Edward

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  9. Poor angus he looks just like our angus IF he would do something like that, which he would...our weather for Iowa is so weird also..this week a little snow alot of wind and cold....stay warm stella rose

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  10. This graupel stuffs doesn't look like it will accumulate and be fun to play in. We have lots of snow to share. We'll get it boxed up and we'll send it off first thing to you this morning☺

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  11. We get those sometimes - we just call them snow pellets and did not know there was an official name for them. We are supposed to warm up to the 40's so all our snow will turn to muck - ugh
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

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  12. Those snow pellets hurt when they fall on skin during a wind. They are pretty to see though.

    Today we were supposed to have overcast...but the sun is shining off and on...partly cloudy, and since that makes sun puddles I and my kitty brofurs are happy!! Though it is way cold and furry windy.

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