Words or ways to describe different kinds of snow?

Question

I’m looking for words or ways to describe different kinds of snow. I’m interested in how to describe snow in different textures, shapes of snowflakes and the changes between soft and crust, but all ways to describe different kinds of snow is welcome. I’m also interested in words that describe different kinds of ice.

I’d prefer generally accepted words/phrases within the English language, but other creative words/phrases are welcome too. :)

biker babe, I know that Inuit’s have approximately the same number of words for snow as most languages. (Assuming that the languages are spoken where there is snow.) There is a popular myth about them having hundreds of words for different kinds of snow, but it’s not true. The person that counted all those hundreds of words counted variations of words stemming from the same root words and that's a no no when you count words.

We call really large snowflakes for something that can be translated into "Laplanders Gloves". "Sugar snow" is when the snow is forming crystals that reminds or sugar, that snow is most common underneath the crust of the snow in the spring.

Answer 1

There are lots of them:

Snow: Falling snow, fallen snow, wet snow, fluffy snow, compact snow, powdery snow, crunchy snow, deep snow, frozen snow, melting snow (or slush), blizzard, snow showers ( French chutes de neige), Mixed rain and snow (French neige fondue), wind-blown snow (Canadian French poudrerie), muddy snow (Canadian French sloche), whiteouts (Canadian French vols) - falling or blowing snow causing poor visibility etc.

Ice: black ice & dirty crust of ice (French verglace), dry ice, drifting ice & pack ice (Russian ledokhod), glacial ice (or blue ice), ice crystals, rotten (unsafe) ice, slush ice, ice floe, iceberg, icicle etc.

If you live in a region where there is a lot of ice and snow, one of the best places to learn vocabulary relating to them is from your local television weather reports. It's a good place to learn any new words relating to ice and snow that crop up in the English language too, and periodically they do.

Answer 2

Ne've' for partly melted and refrozen snow that has become very granular but remains loose. Firn for the same snow when it becomes partly compacted. Powder, light and fluffy snow. And in California skiers refer to the wet heavy snow that typically falls in the Sierra's, Sierra Cement.

Yeah, you might figure, I'm a mountaineer and skier, why these terms have meaning to me.

Answer 3

Powder, granular, wet/heavy, compact/dense, icy...
Did you know that the Innuit people have dozens of terms for snow?

Answer 4

flurries, ice-packed, powder