Forum: outdoors.stackexchange.com
Tags: <snow><terminology>
Title: 1000 names for snow
Question: The old saying goes that  Innuit have a 1000 names for snow  (as @venture2099 says this isn't actually true but you get my point). This kind of makes sense to describe the various states and types of snow you get.  I can name a few:   Neve  Grappel  Wind slab  Rime  Hoar   What other names for snow exist?  English only please, don't just say "snow" in as many languages as google translate will let you...

Answers:
sents: text: Skiiers have many words for snow.
text: Powder Packed Powder Hard pack Ice Glare Ice
text: (If you dig in, you can catch an edge on ice, but not on glare ice.)
text: Crud (Used to be powder, but
text: then it got warm and partially melted, then it re-froze.
text: You sink through it almost like powder, but it's heavy and hard to ski through.)
text: Corduroy (That's the fresh tracks left by a grooming machine. See some pictures here. )
text: Slush Mashed potatoes (This is typical of late spring skiing: it's not so much snow as bits of ice, maybe 2-3 mm in diameter.
text: It's hard to turn, you end up sinking in with each turn, so you often have to muscle around large quantities of snow with each turn.)
text: (Reading the other answers, it sounds like this is the same thing as "Firn/névé".
text: That definition mentioned repeated melting/freezing, which is definitely what happens in the late spring.)
text: Sugar snow (Powder that isn't sticking together at all.)
text: I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting.
answer_details: author: outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/5443/David Yaw
score: 7
sents: text: Firn/névé:
text: Snow consisting of several millimeters sized grains that develop by repeated melting in the sun and freezing over again during the night.
text: Typically occurring in late winter and spring when the temperatures rise again or – in higher altitudes where snow exists all year – during summer.
text: Powder:
text: As the name says, very fine-grained snow that fell at rather cold temperatures (I would guess something like -5 to -10 degrees Celsius).
text: sticky snow: Snow that fell at temperatures around zero degrees Celsius.
text: Heavier than powder and sticks together when compressed – good for building snow men and snowball fights.
text: harsh (Does this word exist as a noun in English?)/snow crust:
text: A hard and thin, ice-like surface on softer snow underneath.
text: Forming mostly on powder that whose surface was slightly molten during the day and froze over again in the night.
text: Especially annoying if it is not thick enough to hold the weight of a person as moving (skiing, snowshoeing, walking) under such conditions is quite exhaustive.
text: hardpack/wind slab (Don't know
text: if necessarily the same?): snow that was carried away from its initial place and deposited somewhere else.
text: Through the wind it is mostly quite compact.
answer_details: author: outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/2410/Benedikt Bauer
score: 6
sents: text: There's an excellent ski term glossary here from the Tetonsandwasatch blog, which includes words for snow, some of which I find hilarious.
text: Some of my favorites: Chunder – Generally, chopped up, bad – even heinous – snow.
text: Corn – Granular snow formed by repeatedly melting during the day and freezing at night.
text: It’s generally icy at night; the ‘corn’ appears as the snow warms with daytime heating.
text: Facets – Snow which has undergone metamorphosis, such that the crystals are poorly bonded together.
text: Often compared to sugar.
text: Glom – 1)
text: A nasty condition in which accumulated material, usually a combination of semi-frozen, frozen, and melting snow, sticks to everything, particularly one’s skins as they attempt to ascend, thus resulting in ‘glomming.’
text: 2) Amalgamation of various food items which end up in the cooking pot on a camp stove.
text: Best served with hot sauce!
text: To learn to protect against glom, look here Graupel – Precipitation that is created by the interaction of droplets of water condensing on a snowflake, creating a ball of rime.
text: Best represented by images of ball bearings or tiny styrofoam ball filling material.
text: Pow , powder – Snow of a low density.
text: Has many names, types, and varieties: gunsmoke, cream, fluff, air, bottomless, gnar gnar (often used by powder technicians), champagne, and many more.
text: Rime – A type of snow that has typically been wind blasted into place with such other factors present that it can hold on to vertical objects. Sastrugi – Snow that has been shaped and affected by the wind.
text: Snain – A barely frozen snow which is a lot like rain.
text: Or vice versa – a frozen rain that’s a lot like snow.
text: Snice – Snow that’s got plenty of ice content.
text: Snirt
text: – You guessed it –
text: snow that’s got plenty of dirt in it.
text: Or dirt that has a little snow upon it.
answer_details: author: outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/3280/Andrew
score: 4
sents: text: Sleet
text: As snow descends through the atmosphere and the air warms it melts and turns back to liquid (rain).
text: If rain or partially-melted snow falls through a layer of sub-freezing air, sleet forms as small pellets of ice.
text: So while not all sleet is still snow, some it may only be partially melted to the point that you may still consider it as such.
text: Sleet is the American terminology.
text: This phenomenon is referred to as ice pellets in the rest of the Angloshpere.
text: The French term is neige fondue .
answer_details: author: outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/3426/orangejewelweed
score: 3
sents: text: Depending on how strict your definition is...
text: Windrow :
text: The pile of snow along the edge of the road left behind by a snowplough.
text: You could also look at this list or this one .
text: Not every word on these lists might apply to your question, but I'm sure you'll find a lot of good ones.
answer_details: author: outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/5437/GentlePurpleRain
score: 3

Summary of the answers:
Pow, powder, rime, snain, snice, snirt, sleet, chunder, corn, facets, hard pack, glare ice, slush, mashed potato, and sugar snow are all words to describe types of snow.
Many words exist: pow, rime, snain, snice, snirt, sleet, chunder, corn, facets, slush, mashed potatoes, sugar snow.