Snow, Snow, Snow (or Hail?)!

Yesterday, we visited my mom in southeast San Jose, and as we drew close, we noticed an occasional car covered with snow and that the foothills around my mom's house were covered in snow (but the hills above them were not -- very strange). My daughter sent one of the pictures she took to the San Jose paper, and they ended up interviewing her on the phone and publishing one of her pictures in the paper (and several more on-line).

The good reporters that they are, they interviewed a meteorologist from the National Weather Service and learned that it wasn't snow but hail, copious amounts of hail, in fact. I suppose that technically the meteorologist was correct although I doubt anyone who was there thought it was hail. I was reminded of how strictly speaking a tomato is a fruit (as are cucumbers, squash, and green beans), but most of us consider them vegetables. My guess is that there isn't a ski resort in Tahoe that would not have called what fell on the San Jose foothills, snow. That's definitely what I'm going to call it (and going to tell my grandkids).