Something To Graupel With

Strange skyfall and solitary sacraments

What’s your favorite type of precipitation? Has anyone ever asked you that?

Mine of course is graupel. A somewhat uncommon form that I heard of long before I ever saw it in person. Granular pellets of snow masquerading as hail, but soft and mushable (i.e. no car damage; just pure fun). Also known as hominy snow, which I love second only to graupel.

Why does this matter? It doesn’t. Not at all.

Graupel in the desert

Here in good old ABQ it has graupeled two days in a row, believe it or not. A rare window-watching delight almost on par, I’d venture to say, with a double hawk sighting (though minus the atavistic shiver of death on the wing).

Graupel in Albuquerque, camera-come-lately

I squandered several units of time gazing out at the skyfall weather, grateful for huge picture windows, cozy walls & roof, and a spacious yard to witness the weird and wondrous vagaries of the world outside.

Fortunately I’m my own boss, or I’d have been chased back to work with a broom.

Instead I got to enjoy the extended moment, observe the universe churning within this minute little capsule of awareness…as graupel fell and thunder rolled. Yes thunder, right here at the cusp of spring.

Why such a strange weather week? Is it just normal Global Weirding? Perhaps something to do with the lunar eclipse past and the solar eclipse coming? What would the ancients say—how would they read this inscrutable message cast down from the heavens like some kind of realtime braille, melting on contact?

Or maybe it’s just luck-o'-the high-altitude desert climate; supercooling airborne water droplets into crystal accretion, pelting the land below with soft little pebbles of white rime…no rhyme or reason beyond alignment of atmospheric conditions.

In any case, whatever the cosmic why—it left my yard looking like the mice at Redwall laid aside their slings & arrows, and instead had a snowball fight with the horde at their gates. Wish you could’ve seen it…

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Thanks for reading! Show your appreciation by shouting out your favorite Redwall / Brian Jacques moment from childhood.

I’ll start: The reforging of Martin the Warrior’s sword from a meteorite the Long Patrol brought back to Salamandastron.

Your turn: