6 ms·

Rare snow rollers spotted in field near Marlborough, UK

102 points by seanhandley 8y ago

076ae80a-3c97-4 8y ago
Slow news day...
- twic 8y ago
  SNOW news day!
- seanhandley 8y ago
  They call them "Sundays".
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
    Especially Super Bowl Sundays.
twic 8y ago
A couple of videos of rollers forming, in Ottawa and Ohio, both leaders in snow-based technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=_GOMYlGZobk https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=_GOMYlGZobk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thswcC3Mz_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thswcC3Mz_8
nopacience 8y ago
And thats how the wheel was invented
tzs 8y ago
This reminds me, in a way, of sailing stones [1]. Although they happen in quite different environments (snowy areas for rollers, deserts for stones), they both are an inanimate thing clearly moving around without human or animal help in non-obvious ways. For convenience, here's the Wikipedia link for snow rollers [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller
cropCircular 8y ago
From the country thatbroughus crop circles. No one knows where they come from!
tedunangst 8y ago
> He said he spotted them in a field he owns and at first thought they had been manmade but there were no footprints. Obviously that just means they beamed back up to the mothership.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  The footprints? That's some fancy tech.
sandworm101 8y ago
And we wonder why people once believed in faeries. If I woke up one morning to see these in my front yard, elf magic would be a pretty reasonable option. If I saw them rolling on their own I might decide to go back inside for fear of crossing paths with an angry leprechaun.
- TomK32 8y ago
  Or Brussels and its EU minions.
Luc 8y ago
Hard to tell the scale. I'm guessing about 50 cm high?
- Someone 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller: ”They can be as small as a tennis ball, but they can also be bigger than a car. Most snow rollers are a few inches/centimeters wide” So, they might be 50 cm, but if so, they would be large examples.
ohiovr 8y ago
Looks like they have tank treads
bacon_waffle 8y ago
I think the mechanism is different, but the rollers remind me of yukimarimo - https://weaknuclearforce.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/yukimarimo/ https://weaknuclearforce.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/yukimarimo...
- twic 8y ago
  > Yukimarimo were named by T. Kameda on JARE-36 in 1995. "Yuki" means snow in Japanese, and "marimo" is a ball-like growth of water algae which the yukimarimo resemble. [1] > The plant was named marimo by the Japanese botanist Takiya Kawakami[b] in 1898. Mari is a bouncy play ball. Mo is a generic term for plants that grow in water. The native names in Ainu are torasampe (lake goblin) and tokarip (lake roller). [2] The roller comes full circle! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukimarimo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukimarimo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimo
  - bacon_waffle 8y ago
    Nice find! I thought I had done a blog post with the reference to "snow down" (the same phenomenon later named yukimarimo) in Paul Siple's account of the first South Pole winter over in 1957, but apparently wrote that up for something else... Perhaps a bit of wikipedia editing is on the menu for this weekend!
qubex 8y ago
Side note: as a non-American, it's hilarious (and sometimes slightly irritating) to read place names in the <City>,<Country> format usually used by Americans (albeit in <City>,<State>). Firstly, pretty much everybody I know is aware that Marlborough is a city in the UK. There's even a famous historical figure, the Duke of Marlborough, associated with the place. Secondly it kind of indicates that at some level the writer believes that US states and foreign countries are similar organisational units, when actually countries have greater independence and sovereignty than do US states. It's certainly illustrative and useful for a wider audience, but... I dunno... it still feels... a bit wrong. (And yeah, there's probably a Marlborough somewhere in the US so American citizens might get confused, but that's kind of the point too... like when I say “I'm from Milan” and I get “oh, Milan, Texas?” back as a reply. “No ma’am, Milan, Italy.”)
- onorton 8y ago
  I'm from the UK. My home address is in Bangor, Northern Ireland. Almost every employer (in the UK) I've interviewed at initially thought I was Welsh. If I say "I'm from Bangor" to an American and they assume I'm American, which one of these would they think I'm referring to?[0] There are two separate Bangor Townships in Michigan alone. It makes total sense to refer to the country and city/town when you are addressing an international audience. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangor#United_States_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangor#United_States_of_Americ...
  - qubex 8y ago
    Yes, you are correct. I apologise to you too. I was a bit testy this morning and I came off a more ill-tempered and quarrelsome person than I had intended, and it is entirely my fault.
  - eigenstuff 8y ago
    When I see Bangor, I think of Bangor, Maine! Their police department's Facebook page has a huge following for being really funny and wholesome, I follow it even though I've never been there. It's really cute.
- 8y ago

102 points by seanhandley 8y ago

076ae80a-3c97-4 8y ago

Slow news day...

twic 8y ago
SNOW news day!
seanhandley 8y ago
They call them "Sundays".
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
  Especially Super Bowl Sundays.

twic 8y ago

A couple of videos of rollers forming, in Ottawa and Ohio, both leaders in snow-based technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=_GOMYlGZobk https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=_GOMYlGZobk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thswcC3Mz_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thswcC3Mz_8

nopacience 8y ago

And thats how the wheel was invented

tzs 8y ago

This reminds me, in a way, of sailing stones [1]. Although they happen in quite different environments (snowy areas for rollers, deserts for stones), they both are an inanimate thing clearly moving around without human or animal help in non-obvious ways. For convenience, here's the Wikipedia link for snow rollers [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller

cropCircular 8y ago

From the country thatbroughus crop circles. No one knows where they come from!

tedunangst 8y ago

> He said he spotted them in a field he owns and at first thought they had been manmade but there were no footprints. Obviously that just means they beamed back up to the mothership.

zdragnar 8y ago
The footprints? That's some fancy tech.

sandworm101 8y ago

And we wonder why people once believed in faeries. If I woke up one morning to see these in my front yard, elf magic would be a pretty reasonable option. If I saw them rolling on their own I might decide to go back inside for fear of crossing paths with an angry leprechaun.

TomK32 8y ago
Or Brussels and its EU minions.

Luc 8y ago

Hard to tell the scale. I'm guessing about 50 cm high?

Someone 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller: ”They can be as small as a tennis ball, but they can also be bigger than a car. Most snow rollers are a few inches/centimeters wide” So, they might be 50 cm, but if so, they would be large examples.

ohiovr 8y ago

Looks like they have tank treads

bacon_waffle 8y ago

I think the mechanism is different, but the rollers remind me of yukimarimo - https://weaknuclearforce.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/yukimarimo/ https://weaknuclearforce.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/yukimarimo...

twic 8y ago
> Yukimarimo were named by T. Kameda on JARE-36 in 1995. "Yuki" means snow in Japanese, and "marimo" is a ball-like growth of water algae which the yukimarimo resemble. [1] > The plant was named marimo by the Japanese botanist Takiya Kawakami[b] in 1898. Mari is a bouncy play ball. Mo is a generic term for plants that grow in water. The native names in Ainu are torasampe (lake goblin) and tokarip (lake roller). [2] The roller comes full circle! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukimarimo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukimarimo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimo
- bacon_waffle 8y ago
  Nice find! I thought I had done a blog post with the reference to "snow down" (the same phenomenon later named yukimarimo) in Paul Siple's account of the first South Pole winter over in 1957, but apparently wrote that up for something else... Perhaps a bit of wikipedia editing is on the menu for this weekend!

qubex 8y ago

Side note: as a non-American, it's hilarious (and sometimes slightly irritating) to read place names in the <City>,<Country> format usually used by Americans (albeit in <City>,<State>). Firstly, pretty much everybody I know is aware that Marlborough is a city in the UK. There's even a famous historical figure, the Duke of Marlborough, associated with the place. Secondly it kind of indicates that at some level the writer believes that US states and foreign countries are similar organisational units, when actually countries have greater independence and sovereignty than do US states. It's certainly illustrative and useful for a wider audience, but... I dunno... it still feels... a bit wrong. (And yeah, there's probably a Marlborough somewhere in the US so American citizens might get confused, but that's kind of the point too... like when I say “I'm from Milan” and I get “oh, Milan, Texas?” back as a reply. “No ma’am, Milan, Italy.”)

onorton 8y ago
I'm from the UK. My home address is in Bangor, Northern Ireland. Almost every employer (in the UK) I've interviewed at initially thought I was Welsh. If I say "I'm from Bangor" to an American and they assume I'm American, which one of these would they think I'm referring to?[0] There are two separate Bangor Townships in Michigan alone. It makes total sense to refer to the country and city/town when you are addressing an international audience. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangor#United_States_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangor#United_States_of_Americ...
- qubex 8y ago
  Yes, you are correct. I apologise to you too. I was a bit testy this morning and I came off a more ill-tempered and quarrelsome person than I had intended, and it is entirely my fault.
- eigenstuff 8y ago
  When I see Bangor, I think of Bangor, Maine! Their police department's Facebook page has a huge following for being really funny and wholesome, I follow it even though I've never been there. It's really cute.
8y ago