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Rare 'snow roller' phenomenon arrives in Saskatoon after winter storm Thursday morning

The rollers are rare as they require very specific conditions, including sticky snow and very high winds.

Rollers are rare as they require very specific conditions, meteorologist says

Heidi Atter · CBC News ·
The snow rollers can get large depending on how far they can roll and continue to gather snow, Terri Lang said. (Submitted by Kelly Pankratz)

Saskatoon residents cleaning up after a winter storm were treated to a rare sight on Thursday morning: snow rollers. 

Snow rollers are cylindrical rolls of snow that resemble round bales.

The phenomenon requires specific environmental conditions. 

"What happens is you need really quite warm conditions when it's snowing," Terri Lang, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said. "Perfect snowman making snow."

Lang said this sticky snow combined with incredibly high winds creates a little lip, which then leads to the rollers. 

"When you get a little bit of a lip going, when the wind is blowing that hard, it gets the ball rolling literally. It gets the snowball rolling and you get a whole series of these rollers," Lang said.

Kelly Pankratz captured the size of one of the snow rollers compared to a hand on Thursday morning. (Submitted by Kelly Pankratz)

Lang said she expects to see more photographs of them out in the countryside around Saskatoon, as they can sometimes fill up fields where there is a lot of space to roll. 

"We don't see them often," she said. "But they're a really cool phenomena."

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