General Chat

Has anyone had this? I've not looked it up so it may not be as rare as I think it is or it may have simply gone over the top of my head as I've never noticed it before.

I know sand and soil travels miles in winds - seen quite a few of those in Oz as well as studying disadvantageous farming methods in the US as a small component of my degree - but this is something I've never spotted until now - the mix of sand and snow falling together in the UK.

There's no reason why it shouldn't as rain and sand fall together but, personally, I've never seen sand with snow and I wondered whether anyone else has.

Our snow has thawed to reveal a layer of yellow sand in places. The tops of our cars have sand on them. There is patchy sand on he front drive and back patio and even on the grass at the back of the house where patches of snow are still thawing. Neither we nor our neighbours have piles of sand anywhere. Nor are there any in the street.

It seems as though we may have had wind-borne sand carried from North African mixing with the snow as it fell. It may not be an unusual occurrence but I have never seen it before in the UK. Has anyone else?

That's interesting JoyLouise.
I've never seen or heard of that, although I did see red snow mentioned online, a few days ago.

Did your snow look white as usual, when it first fell?

Yes, it did Gwyn. It lay white too, with never a hint of sand showing until the thaw.

Seeing as the snow comes from a different direction it must have clashed somewhere above us.

OH has washed the cars and brushed the drive and patio.

I have just read about the phenomenon in National Geographic. Meteorologists reckon it happens every five years or so - so less often than the rain and sand mix which I already knew about.

It appeared in Russia and some of the old iron curtain countries where the snow was sepia-tinted in 2018.

Snow with sand never occurred to me because of wind patterns - you learn something every day. :-)