UC Berkeley

This technical sketch presents a method for modeling the appearance of snow drifts formed by the accumulation of wind-blown snow near buildings and other obstacles. Our method combines previous work on snow accumulation [Fearing] with techniques for incompressible fluid flows [Fedkiw et al.]. By computing the three-dimensional flow of air in the volume around the obstacles our method is able to model how the snow is convected, deposited, and lifted by the wind. The results demonstrate realistic snow accumulation patterns with deep windward and leeward drifts, furrows, and low accumulation in wind shadowed areas. (See figure.).