Blizzard?

February 28 - Today was supposed to be a ski day but we woke up to snow and wind. That is, sustained wind of 15-18 mph with gusts up to 40 mph. Obviously we stayed home. But it got me thinking about blizzards.

Is there a minimum wind speed that is required before a storm is designated a blizzard? Sort of. I found out it doesn’t even have to be snowing to be a blizzard. If there is enough snow on the ground that can blow and obstruct visibility it’s called a ground blizzard.

To officially be a blizzard, the visibility has to be reduced to less than 1/4 mile and the duration of the wind, which is usually necessary to keep the visibility low, needs to be a minimum of three hours. The required wind speed is more vague. Yes there needs to be wind, to keep the snow swirling around to limit visibility but if it’s a little windy, 15-18 miles per hour, and it’s snowing hard that can lower the visibility. The storm also needs “frequent gusts” to 35 mph. This would make it hard to walk around or even drive as the wind is in gusts. A blizzard need poor visibility plus being difficult to move around in.

If we were out on the slopes during a blizzard, we wouldn’t be able to see where we were going, due to swirling snow, we wouldn’t be able to move down the slope easily, as the shifting gusts of wind might push us around, and the ski lifts would be closed, since no resort wants the chairs and gondola swinging around spilling people on the ground and damaging the equipment.

You probably expect a photo showing swirling wind and snow. It’s really hard to take a photo of blowing snow and say, “Look, you can’t see anything!”

Visibility at 1/2 mile

When we moved here, in December, the van line traveled, with our furniture, from Grand Junction to Wolcott then, because of wind, snow, and icy roads, they turned around and went back to Grand Junction.  That's a minimum four-hour trip for and they didn’t come within 100 miles of the house!  We’re glad they turned around.  It’s better than having people stranded or hurt and having everything you own in a ditch in sub-freezing weather. That first attempt at furniture delivery wasn’t even in a blizzard. While there was a lot of wind with gusts and it snowed for hours, we think the visibility was greater than 1/4 mile. So no blizzard. Luckily we have not experienced one, yet.

I’m hanging out here today!

***