Snow clumps falling?

Waiting for the bus this morning watching half dollar size clumps of flakes fall on bainbridge. About 33 degrees. Is there a term for these things? What storm conditions cause them?

Looking thru some snow science papers on my phone while riding the ferry but they are a so far over my head.

Large agglomerations of flakes are generally associated with the warmest temperatures. I've only ever seen that happen right at the freezing point, often with a transition in weather.

Snowflakes as Big as Frisbees?
www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20snow.html

Libbrecht's website, www.snowcrystals.com/, and coffee table books are just generally cool, too.

Awesome, a new word of the day, a more accessible article for the trip home, and the library has the book for me to put on hold.

Saw something similar at whistler early season and couldn't quite remember after that experience if it was large flakes or agglomerations so I tried to look closer at that this time.

Close to freezing and the transition from dry to precip coming back both fit the description.

Thanks guys

Well these were in the 2" range at most. Frisbees would be memorable. Anyone seen anything like that?

I saw pretty unbelievably large clumps in new york one time... baseball sized. 3 inches... maybe one or two at 4 inches. I thought it was pretty awesome looking. Conditions were ideal... temps right at about freezing and calm surface winds. Not quite frisbees though, that would be crazy.

We call this "Monkey Snot" back in Scotland. Its an official term just like the eskimos have a bazillion words to describe snow us Scots call the big wet flakes Monkey Snot. This term also amuses my young boys so its going to stick around.

More large snowflake clusters on Monday, Feb 6. A good explanation on Scott Sistek's blog:

komonews.com/weather/scotts-weather-blog...rnoon-around-seattle

Cool that one is even easier to understand, plus the actual footage. It does look like snot in the vid. With a slight updraft they can get flying saucer like which is more appealing. That happened briefly in the event I saw. I imagine that is what must have occurred for someone to liken them to frisbees tho it must take a delicate balance of conditions for larger ones.