🔊 Graupel on the Ridge
Tucked against the folded ridges of West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, Cacapon Resort State Park holds a natural kind of quiet. On December 26, while hiking on the Central Train through the forest, that stillness was briefly interrupted as a soft shower of graupel passed through—tiny pellets tapping bare branches and the frozen ground.
Graupel, sometimes called soft hail or snow pellets, forms when supercooled water droplets freeze onto falling snowflakes. Unlike true hail, which is clear and hard, graupel is opaque, fragile, and easily crushed between your fingers. In this recording, you can hear the moment when weather became texture.
Naturalist’s Notebook
Find the Infrathin
Marcel Duchamp’s concept of an almost imperceptible difference, such as the warmth of a seat that’s just been vacated, begs us to pay attention. What infrathin differences can you notice when the weather suddenly shifts? The echo of a woodpecker’s hammering as it seeks shelter?
Count the pellets
Hold out your hand and catch the pellets. How many can you count before they start melting from your body’s warmth?
Make a timeline
Find an animal and choose a place to watch it for a while. Can you create a timeline of its activities? If the weather changes, how does that impact the animal’s behavior?
