A squall on the Ore Line. The Nevada Northern Wreck Train hammers its way up the Keystone Branch toward the mines, in the face of a sudden, mid-winter squall. The brief, but intense weather event you see here looks a lot like a summer hail storm, but in fact, the precipitation is what the National Weather Service folks would call "snow pellets." Unlike the light, fluffy flakes that most of us are used to, these pellets are like little snowballs that are softer than hailstones and about the size of a large pea. As can be seen in this photo, they come down a whole lot faster than snowflakes and they coat the ground rather quickly. They make for a rather dramatic photograph, but fortunately, they don't last long. That's a good thing, for just a few minutes after I took this photo, I had to begin a long drive west on US 50 toward Reno, over numerous mountain passes. The ride would not have been fun if this stuff had been falling the whole way.
