[Geysers] Mysterious snow shapes

[Wayne Simister]

Janet Chapple wrote:
> Can anyone explain the several fairly large snowballs or flattened 
> cylinders that appear on the OFG webcam these days? I've only noticed 
> them in recent days and wonder how they got there or what the 
> mechanism is that made them (like, humans or ??).
>
> Janet Chapple
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*My guess for the cause of these, ....  is that the snow has been quite 
extensive in Yellowstone this year.  Those snowballs or flattened 
cylinders are either logs or larger rocks which have insulated the snow 
from melting on the extra warm, thermally heated ground.  Thus, they 
have accumulated snow over many storms giving them odd shapes.  Other 
snows have melted away.  I too, was interested when first noting them.

Wayne Simister*

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20080330/a37a4c51/attachment.html>