Several days ago when I took my wife to work near Walnut Creek, Ohio I noticed an odd phenomenon on the hillside at the nursing home where she works. There were hundreds of little snow ball looking clumps on the hillside. They looked to be anywhere from a couple of inches to about a foot in diameter. The next day when I was reading the local paper I discovered that they are called “snow rollers”. I’d never seen anything like them in my lifetime. When I asked my mom about them she said it was the first time she had heard of them. Apparently they are VERY rare and it is not likely that I will see them more than once in my entire lifetime. They look pretty cool so I found some more information about them. According to Wikipedia, A snow roller is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which large snowballs are formed naturally as chunks of snow are blown along the ground by wind, picking up material along the way, in much the same way that the large snowballs used in snowmen are made. A number of conditions must be met simultaneously in order for the little snowballs to form. I went out to Schrock’s Amish Farm to take some pictures of them. Most of them were between 3″ to 8″ but I found one that was around 12″ in diameter. According to wiki, they have been found up to 24″ in diameter. 