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Whiteouts
Mon Feb 24, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
As we get into the wintry season, we at The Weather Notebook thought it might be time to look
at some of the terminology of this cold part of the year. Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather
Notebook.
Blizzard. We all probably can form a pretty good picture of what it's all about, but what,
EXACTLY, is it? The word comes to us from, well, we really aren't sure where it comes from,
according to Webster's Dictionary. However, the Glossary of Weather and Climate suggests that
the name originated in Virginia, and spread throughout the land.
The National Weather Service constitutes a blizzard as a storm with at least 35 mph winds --
just below gale-force -- enduring for more than three hours, accompanied by low temperatures,
and visibility below a quarter of a mile due to the snow.
A whiteout is even more confusing. We normally envision a whiteout as a severe blizzard, where
visibility is so bad that any sense of direction is lost. You may have heard stories of people
lost when they normally would have been in sight of safe haven. On Mount Washington, a snow
tractor operator once stepped a few yards away from his machine ... and never found it again.
His passengers were perplexed -- and quite frightened, to be stranded high up on one of the
most brutal mountains on earth.
The driver eventually found his way down the mountain, meeting the rescue teams which were
coming to find him, and the passengers were rescued several hours later.
A whiteout, however, is also an atmospheric condition of polar regions, where the snow cover,
the overcast sky, and the air itself become indistinguishable. With no horizon, objects seem
to float in the air.
The Weather Notebook is supported by Subaru of America, and the National Science Foundation.
We are produced at the Mount Washington Observatory, where our website is
www.mountwashington.org.
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