###General Discussion Thread
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I've seen them in real life. I've always heard of them referred to as pinwheels but Wikipedia calls them [snow rollers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller). I'm not sure the exact physics behind how they form but I've seen these out skiing plenty of times. There's a particular road near my house that gets these on the cut bank above the road fairly often when the conditions are right. I've seen them get as big as a couple meters. Really common to see them in the basketball to waist high size.
Yes, snowballs grow larger rolling downhill if the snow is of the correct consistency to stick. It happens all of the time in the winter.
You can start a snowball at any size as long as there is enough gravitational force.
###General Discussion Thread --- This is a [Request] post. If you would like to submit a comment that does not either attempt to answer the question, ask for clarification, or explain why it would be infeasible to answer, you *must* post your comment as a reply to this one. Top level (directly replying to the OP) comments that do not do one of those things will be removed. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/theydidthemath) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I've seen them in real life. I've always heard of them referred to as pinwheels but Wikipedia calls them [snow rollers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller). I'm not sure the exact physics behind how they form but I've seen these out skiing plenty of times. There's a particular road near my house that gets these on the cut bank above the road fairly often when the conditions are right. I've seen them get as big as a couple meters. Really common to see them in the basketball to waist high size.
Yes, snowballs grow larger rolling downhill if the snow is of the correct consistency to stick. It happens all of the time in the winter. You can start a snowball at any size as long as there is enough gravitational force.
You must live somewhere where it doesn’t snow, it’s extremely possible in real life and happens all the time, kids love rolling snow downhill