Industrieschnee

[randomness]

I'd never heard of this phenomenon. Nor had my host. Nonetheless, last night's weather forecast included a reference to "Industrieschnee", which translates to "industrial snow".

Well, we're getting some of that today, just like they promised. It seem to have something to do with factories pumping steam into the air, and a weather inversion.

If you read German, here are a couple of pages on the topic:

http://www.swisswetter.ch/aktuell/20020111-industrieschnee.htm
http://www.linz.at/Umwelt/umwelt_11028.asp

Comments

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

In the part of Oklahoma City where I grew up, we would occasionally get a little band of snow, from exactly this phenomenon, when one of the power plants nearby blew off steam on a cold winter morning. It was very odd, because it was such a narrow swath that got snowed on. However, I never heard of it on the actual weather forecast.