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I recorded this on my recent three night snow camping trip near Moosehead Creek in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, Shasta County, California. I made my campsite by digging a pit in the snow and building short walls around it, which I then covered with a nylon tarp. On the final night of my trip, graupel showers started falling, then transitioned to snow. This episode consists of two recordings I made in my campsite under the tarp that night, the first part is a heavy graupel shower that passed through, the second part is a snow shower with a little graupel mixed in for a bit, then ends with steady snowfall. Each part is about seventeen minutes long, and I faded them together for a seamless transition.

You might be wondering, what is graupel? Graupel is formed when snowflakes pass through supercooled water droplets as they fall. The supercooled water droplets freeze on contact, and then accumulate on the snowflake as they fall and become very tiny snowballs. Graupel is sometimes referred to as soft hail, and it falls much faster than snow, which is why it makes so much noise when it hits the tarp.