Talk:Winter storm

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Snowbird225.

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snowstorm / blizzard

What is the difference between blizzard and snowstorm? --SM (talk) 05:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

A blizzard is a stronger storm, with higher windspeeds, and more snow. Also, please use this talk page only for matters regarding the article itself, not the topic of the article. Skipper1931 (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

citation needed??

From the article: "Snow is less dense than liquid water, by a factor of approximately 10 at temperatures slightly below freezing, and even more at much colder temperatures. citation needed"

Why on earth is a citation needed? Anyone living in a snowy climate knows this, and it is so well known that noone would write it in a scientific article. Some knowlegde is actually common knowledge, and should not be subjected to this citation requirement. --88.90.165.48 (talk) 22:11, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Long list of cities where snowfall is typical

"in places where snowfall is typical, such as Utica, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Detroit, Bismarck, Fargo, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Omaha, St. Louis, Des Moines, Wichita, Denver, Albuquerque, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Flagstaff, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Portland, Chicago, Syracuse, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Toronto, such small snowfalls are rarely disruptive..."

Some people have gone through the effort of compiling this list, so I wanted to check before removing it. I think the article reads much better without this long, and inherently incomplete, list of cities. It also doesn't present a "worldwide view". I think "in places where snowfall is typical, such small snowfalls are rarely disruptive..." would be good enough. Freeinfo (talk) 13:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I just boldly removed a few of the cities without realizing there was an attempted discussion on the talk page about it. I figured there was no need for SO MANY cities, and I shortened it by keeping it to one city per state and removing some cities which were quite near others. Personally, I agree with you that completely removing the list would not hurt the article; however, I didn't want to go too far, so I just reduced it. Greengreengreenred 23:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Freezing rain

I added some information about the Christmas Day Ice Storm of 2000 that took place in southwestern Arkansas and surrounding areas. This should serve to reinforce the point about the danger of freezing rain. The Christmas Day Ice Storm of 2000 caused devastating electrical issues in parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The city of Texarkana, Arkansas experienced the worst damage, at one point losing the ability to use telephones, power and running water. In some areas in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and eventually Louisiana, over an inch of ice accumulated from the freezing rain. Snowbird225 (talk) 06:17, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

References

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Merger proposal

Important content from the slush page should be merged into the Dangers of snow section of this article. There isn't much to be talked about regarding "slush" other than it's wet snow causing slippery conditions. I think it can be covered with a sentence or two on this page. --PurpleDiana (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

• I think it has adequate notability as an independent page. TheRealWeatherMan (talk) 01:49, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

• I think it can be merged into Winter storm. Kpgjhpjm (talk) 13:47, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

• Would be misleading because ice snow and slush is not exclusively connected to Winterstorm, infact not even to Winter. Imagine someone would merge parts of Tire with Bicycle wheel and in consequence cause some "tire-links" in car-articles suddenly carry readers to the bicycle parts. Besides that Slush is significant and special enough to deserve a complete own article. --Kharon (talk) 23:18, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose Slush is not primarily a storm phenomenon it is typically a melt phenomenon that can be artificially induced by adding a melting agent. I am going to remove the almost year-old tags, elsewhere, with TheRealWeatherMan supporting its notability as an independent page and with Kharon and I agreeing that it doesn't belong in the storm topic. HopsonRoad (talk) 13:00, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Image replacement

This suggestion originates from this revert and copied to this talk page at the suggestion of HopsonRoad.

In this case I don't think the Dallas image is appropriate for the article for several reasons. As horrible the snow is to people living in Texas, the article should reflect 'Winter storm' more globally. Recent events always trigger lots of image uploads in articles and these are usually not so well thought through. Dallas got 1/2 inch of snow with winds around 9 mph (14 km/h) (=Gentle breeze). It is a cold wave, an unusual occurrence or abnormal weather, but meteorologically it's not a snow storm. Media has a tendency to go for drama when naming weather phenomena. The article also has photos only from the US so at least one photo from another part of the world would be better.

Might I suggest the photo be replaced by either File:Nevicata eccezionale (4433552880).jpg from Italy, File:Sneeuw Kruiskamp 's-Hertogenbosch.jpg from The Netherlands or File:RFA Tidespring during bad weather off the UK coast MOD 45163864.jpg taken south of Plymouth. The photo from the English Channel is also nice since it illustrates a winter storm at sea while all the other images are land-based. cart-Talk 20:18, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this discussion here, W. Carter. I concur with your recommendation that images should represent a more global perspective. We should add South America and Asia to the mix, as well. I would recommend an image illustrating each type of weather described in each section, instead of the gallery, as presented now.

In terms of diversity, I would keep the Italy and sea pictures to add to the diversity. I concur that the Texas storm may be of note to that state, but it adds marginal value to what the article is describing. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 20:32, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment. I'll wait a while to see what other editors may have to say about this before I get to work on the article. cart-Talk 20:39, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your willingness to work on this article, W. Carter. You might consider whether graupel, ice pellets and rime belong in the article as sections unto themselves, since they are merely types of precipitation (graupel and ice pellets) or deposition (rime ice). Have you heard of a rime storm? I suggest that this article should be about aggregate effects, such as those caused by wind, snow, freezing rain. Food for thought. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 01:39, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Good points HopsonRoad, I agree. The article has become something of a Christmas tree with people adding related issues as sections of their own. It needs some more coherent structure and layout-tweaking. That can be done while fixing up the images. I'll get on all of this during the weekend. That will leave other users some more time for comments. Did some initial cleanup. Some of the text was written during a class assignment and could be tweaked for language, content correction and style. All the best, cart-Talk 09:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

While we may have been unimpressed with some light snow falling on traffic in Texas, clearly the February 2021 winter storm in the mid-west is noteworthy and illustrates the types of weather and large-scale effects that such a storm can cause. The NYT has some imagery that may have counterparts in the public domain. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 03:38, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Nothing so dramatic to be found with a Commons/public license, I'm afraid. I did a search in the most likely places. As usual, only the National Guard had some good photos right now. The closest I got was a photo from West Virginia, now uploaded (File:West Virginia National Guard members conduct road clearing and debris removal operations.jpg). This is still a very recent event and better photos might become available in a week or two. I will add the road clearing photo to illustrate the February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm as it's already mentioned in the text. If a better photo comes along, it can be replaced. Not sure what more info to add to the article, if you have any thoughts please let me know. Cheers, cart-Talk 10:02, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

This article is too American-centered.

As the title says. The article basically only talks about storm events in the continental USA and only gives examples from within the USA while it should serve as a point of learning about snow storms and winter events in general. 212.156.244.206 (talk) 07:33, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I definitely agree with that statement. Even the pictures alone are too America-centric. There's one picture taken in New York City in 2016, and then another one of a West Virginia National Guard member clearing a road in Putnam County in February 2021. One of those should probably be replaced with a picture from another country, preferably outside of North America (eg. Europe or Asia). I'm sure you can find plenty of pictures of snow/ice storms in places like (but not necessarily limited to) Germany, the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Russia, China (the northern part and Tibet Plateau), Japan, South Korea, maybe even some areas of the Middle East and southern mountainous Europe. Maybe even parts of Australia and New Zealand. As for the prose itself, there needs to definitely be more international examples. I didn't read the entire article before posting this, so it's possible my examples could already be listed. But I know there was a major snow/cold event across Europe in 2018, I know there was a snowstorm in the Middle East and North Africa in the 2010s, and in 1972 there was a massive blizzard that walloped Iran with feet (meters) of snow. Same thing for patterns, there are various patterns in Europe and Asia that are different from North America. European storms often originate from Nor'Easters that impact the US East Coast, not exactly familiar with Asian weather patterns other than sea-effect snow over the Caspian Sea (especially over Iran), and over the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan (Japan and most of the Korean Peninsula), which is basically the same as lake-effect snow on the Great Lakes; and the mountain-induced snowstorms over especially the Himalayas (I can think of several severe snowstorms to hit Mount Everest). So yes, this article definitely needs globalized. Bonus points if the Southern Hemisphere is also mentioned. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 08:06, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

I say that and i have noticed there's a winter storm picture from Finland on here. Definitely needs kept. Also two from Chicago. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 08:08, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Ok, the pictures are actually fairly globalized. There's one from the English Channel (keep), one from Italy, one from China, a couple from unknown locations. I do think maybe a picture from somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere would be appropriate. The prose and examples definitely need work. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 08:11, 17 January 2026 (UTC)