Re: 'snowstorm vs. blizzard'

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> How is "visibility" defined?
"[T]he greatest distance toward the horizon at which prominent objects
can be identified with the naked eye."

> If it means you could have a "blizzard" in which you can see a,
> say, a car 150 m away and with wind speeds of no more than 15 m/s,
> my impression of what intensity the word implies is quite exaggerated.
Evidently so.

A "severe blizzard" means that the wind speed exceeds 45 mph (72 km/hr,
20 m/s), visibility less than 100 feet (30 m), and temperature at or
below 10 deg F (-12 deg C).  This may be more what you have in mind.

In any case, these are minimum definitions.  Blizzards are probably the
most dangerous weather conditions other than tornadoes and hurricanes,
and it is quite common to have 0 deg F (-18 deg C) temperatures or lower,
with visibility around 5 feet (1.5 m).

--
"But the next day there came no dawn,           John Cowan
and the Grey Company passed on into the         jcowan@reutershealth.com
darkness of the Storm of Mordor and were        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
lost to mortal sight; but the Dead              http://reutershealth.com
followed them.          --"The Passing of the Grey Company"

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