What was that white stuff falling from the sky Saturday afternoon during various sports competitions?
It wasn’t snow, because it wasn’t fluffy enough. The matter briefly collecting on the fields wasn’t frozen solid, either, so it wasn’t true sleet or hail.
According to weather experts, the substance was “graupel”, which is described as soft hail, corn snow or snow pellets. Makes sense. Hail and sleet can be picked up. Graupel cannot.
Graupel fell for at least a trio of brief moments, sometimes quite heavily, during Bishop O’Connell High School’s home varsity baseball field on its North Arlington campus. In the picture with this blog, O’Connell baserunner Bobby McDonough is being graupeled on as he takes a lead off second base.
The graupel moments were basically like snow squalls. The skies would suddenly darken, the wind would significantly increase, and the matter would intensely fall. Then, seconds later, the sun would be shining brightly, until the next squall line approached.
Meanwhile, a baseball game was being played through it all.
Might have been a good time to have used an orange or yellow baseball that day during the graupel game.
– Dave Facinoli
dfacinoli@sungazette.net