Snow has rarely been as varied as it has been at the Vancouver Winter Olympics

To those who are observers of the Winter Olympics in Canada, 2010, the white stuff seen is snow and nothing more than snow; however, for the participants who are in the business of winning medals, snow is as varied as waves are to sailors or nails are to carpenters.

A ski technician and winter participants described snow as being:

• coarse
• fine
• dirty
• clean
• sloppy
• hard
• balled
• icy
• sharp
• kind of like fresh snow
• dull
• from full winter snow at the top, which is really bright and clear and clean, and then down on the bottom, it's that old dirty, marbly snow
• powder
• crust
• slush
• crud
• chalky
• chunky
• graupel or Styrofoam (like frozen beads of Styrofoam)
• sloppy
• corduroy (grooved pattern left on snow by grooming machines)
• red snow, which falls in the Alps and is tinted by red desert dust from Africa
• balled (snow that is like an old snow that has a round formation to it, so when it is picked up, it looks like little balls
• marbly, when those balls collect together and become big chunks
• béton, French for "concrete" which refers to a hard, icy course
• gros sel, another French word which refers to snow crystals the size of cooking salt
• savonneuse, or French for soapy and is used when snow gleams as if it's just been washed
• agressive snow, so cold that skis can't run smoothly over it
• salted, which is wet snow that has been seeded with salt or chemicals to make it firmer
• sugary, which is a spring snow with big crystals
• grippy, where the skier gets more feedback from the skies

A snow crystal is an individual ice crystal whereas a snowflake is usually an aggregate of many single crystals.

Short-term snow accumulations may be significant and visibility greatly reduced. Snow squalls are common along the shores of the Great Lakes and other large lakes.