simonsblips

By simonslife

Graupel or snow pellets.

Dry and clear skies greeted me as I exited the garage with my bike for an interesting commute. The first 15 minutes were fine if a little eye watering, as I approached the first railway tunnel along the Tarka trail (disused railway line) a few white flecks of what seemed to be hail bounced around me. On exiting the tunnel I was bombarded by the white stuff and the trail had been obliterated by a covering of it. It wasn’t slippery at all and I crunched through safely until it petered out 10 miles later. It wasn’t snow and it wasn’t hail and when I looked up variations I came across this:

Graupel is also called snow pellets or soft hail, as the graupel particles are particularly fragile and generally disintegrate when handled.

Riding home wasn’t as easy, the trail was clear until a few miles from work after which the white covering had been compressed by activity and was extremely slippery, I was able to cycle gingerly along an access road back to the main road and a trouble free journey home.
Sunset in extra.

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