Snowstorm

“ A week of spring days bright in every hour, without a stain or thought of the storm, came in glorious colors, giving still greater pledges of happy life to every living creature of the spring, but a loud, energetic snowstorm possessed every hour of yesterday. Every tree and broken weed bloomed yet once more; all summer distinctions were leveled off; all plants and the very rocks and streams were equally polypetalous.
This morning winter had everything in the valley. The snow drifted about in the frosty wind like meal, and the falls were muffled in thick sheets of frozen spray. ”

“ As we move still further south, evidences of the abnormal rigour of an exceptionally early and severe snowstorm are everywhere apparent. The valleys are all flooded. Shattered trees with broken branches cumbering the ground, give the orchards a mournful look. ”

“ The inhabitant of the middle latitudes of this continent has no data to picture to himself what a snowstorm in the north may be. To him snow is something benign that comes soft-footedly over night, and on the most silent wings like an owl, something that suggests the sleep of Nature rather than its battles. The further south you go, the more, of course, snow loses of its aggressive character. ”

“ During great snowstorms the winds within such storms blowing spirally inward toward the storm centre near the earth, and at the same time upward and outward, above, exert the vast powers of bringing together the material, the water vapours, which in conjunction with the icy breath of the raging blizzard, perfects the formation of the snow crystal. ”

“ These were large frozen flakes, sown at first softly in space, then eddying, and heralding a snowstorm. The child was covered with them. The snowstorm, which for the last hour had been on the sea, was beginning to gain the land. It was slowly invading the plains. It was entering obliquely, by the north-west, the tableland of Portland.
BOOK THE SECOND. THE HOOKER AT SEA.
CHAPTER I. SUPERHUMAN LAWS.
The snowstorm is one of the mysteries of the ocean. ”

“ Traveling on the plains is much more difficult than in forests. In the terrible snowstorms that sweep over these prairies, darkening the atmosphere and rendering the sun, moon, and stars invisible, or indeed any object a short distance ahead, they are as much at fault to proceed as any other person, and at these times lie down, let the snow drift over and cover them, and remain thus until the storm passes, which is frequently two or three days and nights. ”

“ Snowstorms of the same gentle kind abound among the high peaks, but in spring they not unfrequently attain larger proportions, assuming a violence and energy of expression scarcely surpassed by those bred in the depths of winter. ”

“ But notwithstanding the general mildness of our winter season, there are occasional falls of snow—snowstorms they cannot be called—which may lie on the ground in a thin layer of one or two inches in thickness, on the shady side of unfrequented streets, for a day, with probably one or two degrees of frost. ”

“ If the weather appears tranquil when we reach the summit of the range, I may set out among the glaciers for a few days, but if otherwise I shall push hastily for the Owen’s River plains and thence up to Tahoe, etc. I am working hard and shall not feel easy until I am on the other side beyond the reach of early snowstorms. Not that I fear snowstorms for myself, but the poor animals would die or suffer. ”

“ You struggle along for a time, all the while fearing to believe that the storm which did not seem so very dangerous, is growing more violent, and that the daylight, which you thought would last for hours yet, seems to be fading, and that night appears to be setting in earlier than usual. It is! For there are two miles of snow between you and the sun. But in a swiftly moving maze of snow, partly spit out of the lowering clouds, and partly torn and swept up from the gray and cloud-like earth, in a roar of rising wind, and oppressed by growing anxiety, you stubbornly press on. ”

“ By-and-by the snow-flakes pile more leisurely: they grow large and scattered, and come more slowly than before. The hills, that were brown, heave into sight—great, rounded billows of white. The gray woods look shrunken to half their height, and stand waving in the storm. The wind freshens, and scatters the light flakes that crown the burden of the snow; and as the day droops, a clear, bright sky of steel color cleaves the land and clouds, and sends down a chilling wind to bank the walls and to freeze the storm. ”

“ But in Winter when the cold and windy weather is coming, they fly in great flocks like clouds of huge snow-flakes, and we watch them from the window and wonder how soon the storm will follow them. And the next day or the day after, or sometimes the very day when they come, the air is white again, this time with driving snow. It comes flying past the windows, to be whirled up high by the gale and dropped again till we see the ground speckled with white, and then white everywhere except close round the big tree trunks. ”

“ Suddenly it tears up a few hundred thousand cubic feet of this snow, and whirls it up high into the air, leaving it to the mercy of the upper current, to fall to the ground again in the form of the thickest snow-storm, or to be dispersed at will like glittering ice-crystals. At times the wind sweeps up large tracts of the dry ice-dust, and pours them down upon a deep-lying valley amid the mountains, or on to the summit of the passes, obliterating in a few seconds the laboriously excavated mountain road, at which a whole company of rutners have toiled for days. ”

“ By many busy hands is shorn;
Autumn’s ripe fruits, an ample store,
Are gathered in for rich and poor. WINTER
Winter’s cold frost and northern blast—
This is the season that comes last:
The snow has come, the sleigh-bells ring,
And merry boys rejoice and sing. THE SNOW
Oh, see! the snow is falling now,
It powders all the trees;
Its flakes abound, and all around
They float upon the breeze.
’Tis snowing fast, and cold the blast,
But yet I hope ’twill stay:
Oh, see it blow the falling snow
In meadows far away.
Jack Frost is near, we feel him here,
He’s on his icy sled ”

“ They gravely bade farewell to all, and the little crowd cheered lustily against the whine of the blizzard as, with cracking whip and hoarse shouts, they were wrapped in the cloudy winding sheet of snow.
Arctic storms have an even sameness; the intense cold, the heartless wind which augments tenfold the chill of the temperature, the air thick and dark with stinging flakes rushing by in an endless cloud. A drifting, freezing, shifting eternity of snow, driven by a ravening gale which sweeps the desolate, bald wastes of the Northland. ”

“ As soon as the sun declined towards the west, the wind increased and rose to a storm, the bank of clouds from the east began to ascend, and the dark streaks to put themselves in motion against the wind. The snow was violently driven about by partial whirlwinds, both on the ice and from off the peaks of the high mountains, and filled the air. At the same time, the ground-swell had increased so much, that its effects upon the ice became very extraordinary and alarming. ”

“ A storm, which had been fiercely raging for several days, gave no signs of exhaustion.—The snow, which had been falling for fifty or sixty hours—not in a fleecy shower, but mingled with cutting particles like hail—filled the atmosphere, and with each successive gust of a stiff northwester, was whirled aloft in vast curling sheets and wreaths—or driven through the narrow streets with a force that was blinding and almost irresistible. ”

“ Through the canvas, through every stitch or smallest opening, spurts a small flood of the finest snow, like flour out of a flour-mill, or collects itself on the inner surface, where its ever-increasing weight at length brings it down like small avalanches. As long as the storm rages the cold is alleviated from the equalisation of warm air over the sea, though it seldom allows any heat to remain in the tent, so that we were still in a cold of from 14° to 5° F.
“By degrees a covering of snow at least an inch thick lies on the sack, under which we must patiently wait till the storm ceases. ”

“ The frosts are severe at night, and the meadow grass turns dry and wan. The last lilac crocuses die upon the fields. Icicles, hanging from watercourse or mill-wheel, glitter in the noonday sunlight. The wind blows keenly from the north, and now the snow begins to fall and thaw and freeze, and fall and thaw again. The seasons are confused; wonderful days of flawless purity are intermingled with storm and gloom. At last the time comes when a great snowfall has to be expected. There is hard frost in the early morning, and at nine o'clock the thermometer stands at 2°. ”

“ One winter only had passed since the convulsion that disrupted it, and already the snow was beginning to build up its gaps and chasms. All the summer through, for many hours on clear days, the sun will melt those snows and the frost at night will glaze them into ice. The more conformable ice-blocks will gradually be cemented together, while the fierce winds that beat upon the ridge will wear away the supports of the more egregious and unstable blocks, and one by one they will topple into the abyss on this side or on that. ”

“ There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning, and through the partially-frosted window-panes I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. These are not the big flakes heavy with moisture which melt as they touch the ground and are portentous of a soaking rain. It is to be in good earnest a wintry storm. ”

“ Here, if snow has fallen, as sometimes happens, while wind is blowing, it is driven into all manner of curving wave crests and undulations; then when the fall is over, the sky clears again, a night of frost hardens and congeals the outlines, and the trees wear fine feathers and{17} plumes of whiteness. As the snowfall packs with its own weight, there grows on the surface of the fields a crust half snow, half ice, covered with dazzling minute crystals. ”

“ Presently the storm broke forth into full snowy bloom, and the thronging crystals darkened the air. The wind swept past in hissing floods, grinding the snow into meal and sweeping down into the hollows in enormous drifts all the heavier particles, while the finer dust was sifted through the sky, increasing the icy gloom. ”

“ It increases, is wet and clogging, and makes a white night of midday.
There is seldom any wind with first snows, more often rain, but later, when there is already a smooth foot or two over all the slopes, the drifts begin. The late snows are fine and dry, mere ice granules at the wind's will. Keen mornings after a storm they are blown out in wreaths and banners from the high ridges sifting into the cañons.
Once in a year or so we have a "big snow." The cloud tents are widened out to shut in the valley and an outlying range or two and are drawn tight against the sun. ”

“ The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”
Emerson.
10 A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east: we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air. ”

“ It is the worst snow-storm to bear that I remember. A strong wind from the north blows the snow almost horizontally, and beside freezing you, almost takes your breath away. The driving snow blinds you, and when you are protected, you can see but a little way, it is so thick. ”

“ A damp snow-storm often turns to rain, and, in our freakish climate, the wind will whisk sometimes into the northwest so suddenly as to plate all the trees with crystal before it has swept the sky clear of its last cobweb of cloud. ”

“ Slowly it surges on, like a deep groan of rage long controlled only to break out all the more fearfully in raving, annihilating fury. The snow-storm, the first of the year, sweeps down from the Grossortler over the bare trembling heath--a mighty, moving mass rolls on before it that breaks incessantly into powder, and is incessantly renewed--as if the winds had torn the eternal mantle of snow from the shoulders of the numberless glaciers, and were flinging it down from the heights. ”

“ The grand winter storms that load the mountains with enduring fountain snow seldom set in before the end of November. The fertile clouds, descending, glide about and hover in brooding silence, as if thoughtfully examining the forests and streams with reference to the work before them; then small flakes or single crystals appear, glinting and swirling in zigzags and spirals; and soon the thronging feathery masses fill the sky and make darkness like night, hurrying wandering mountaineers to their winter quarters. ”

“ The snow of the first winter storm is frequently soft, and lodges in due dense leafy branches, weighing them down against the trunk, and the slender, drooping axis, bending lower and lower as the load increases, at length reaches the ground, forming an ornamental arch. Then, as storm succeeds storm and snow is heaped on snow, the whole tree is at last buried, not again to see the light of day or move leaf or limb until set free by the spring thaws in June or July. ”