Rare 'rollers' take shape in snow
A rare wintry creation called snow rollers, snow bales or snow barrels appeared Monday in clearings throughout the region.
The large, hollowed balls of snow, varying in size from that of a basketball to large tubing, is a rare weather phenomenon based on the right kind of snow, wind and terrain.
Residents in Butler, Clarion and Venango counties have reported them to the Pittsburgh office of the National Weather Service.
“It looks like thousands of kids were playing in the field, rolling snowballs,” said Eric Krenitsky, owner of Krendale Golf Course in Butler Township.
The course has plenty of the snow rollers.
“There has to be at least 1,000 basketball-sized snowballs” across 10 acres of the property, he said.
Krenitsky said he had seen the rollers on the Weather Channel, but not in person. He thought they were a magnificent sight.
John Darnley, a hydro meteorological technician at the Pittsburgh National Weather Service office, said the snow has to be drier and powdery, and the wind has to be persistent to create snow rollers.
“You need the right wind and right snow on the ground for it to develop,” he said. “It's really the right combination of temperature, snow, wind and terrain.”
He said the rollers are more common in Midwestern states, like Kansas and Missouri, where there are many flat spaces. The naturally forming snowballs don't have an official name.
“Everyone's got their own names for them,” Darnley said. “Snow bales, snow barrels, snow pipes, snow wheels.”
Bob and Berenice Madjaric of Portersville call them snow cylinders.“I looked out my bedroom window and said, 'Look at these unusual things,'” said Berenice Madjaric, who saw more than 1,000 of them appear on a 10-acre stretch.“It's so interesting,” she said, “They're just these cylinders laying there. I was just fascinated by it that the wind blew the snow into those configurations.”Her husband, Bob, spent a couple hours taking photos of the creations, which range in size from 10 inches to two feet. He also replicated the process to see how exactly they formed.“I have figured out how they're formed. They start with a small piece (of snow) that starts rolling, and it gathers more and more material. It has to form a cylinder,” he said.“The inside piece is the little piece that originally formed. In the hole is a double cone shape with the points touching.”The cylinders were a rare sight for him and his wife.“I'm 76, and I've never seen them,” he said.
Wind - Time - Temp - ChillMonday6 a.m. 27 167 a.m. 21 11 8 a.m. 18 29 a.m. 14 010 a.m. 14 -111 a.m. 12 -3noon 16 31 p.m. 14 42 p.m. 12 -23 p.m. 14 14 p.m. 12 05 p.m. 12 -46 p.m. 9 -57 p.m. 9 -28 p.m. 7 -99 p.m. 5 -910 p.m. 3 -1411 p.m. 1 -11midnight 0 -18Today1 a.m. -2 -202 a.m. -2 -153 a.m. -6 -184 a.m. -8 NA5 a.m. -8 -206 a.m. -9 NA- See more at: http://beedit.sx.atl.publicus.com/article/20140128/NEWS01/701289939&NoCache=1#sthash.GExquEJC.dpuf
