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Bonus points if there's a known onomatopoeia to describe the sound.
"Myrornas krig"
"The war of the ants"
This goes so fucking hard
What prompted this question is some Japanese TV service ended this past weekend for a relative and the word to describe the static noise was "sand storm".
Thought it might be interesting to hear what it's called elsewhere.
Schneesturm (snow storm) or Ameisenkrieg (ant war) in German.
We always called it Ameisenfußball (ant soccer).
"the war of the ants" (myrornas krig)
/Sweden
Know the term ‘Ants Soccer’, quite similar (Germany)
Ameisen Fußball? Never heard of that, super cool
In Germany it's called "Weißes Rauschen" (so akin to white noise, white rustling / murmuring?). It seems to be both about the sound (rauschen) and the visuals (weiß).
In Poland it was „śnieży” (snowing).
How’s that pronounced? Sorry for coming achoo with too many cultural questions
I am not even able to write it phonetically in English. Ask Google Translate - its pronunciation is close-enough.
In IPA it is: /ɕɲɛʑɨ/
…and if you are interested in the sound of static rather than the image, then the Polish word is: „szumi”. This can be approximated in English as: 'shoomy'. The 'sz' sound does sound like static.
The funny thing is that our 'sz' (in „szumi”) and 'ś' (in „śnieży”) usually sound exactly the same to English or French speakers, while for us they are quite distinct sounds.
Flimmer
That's cool. Something like "flickering", I would guess?
Yeah, pretty much. It's danish btw 🙂
Back in the days when we all had antennas and cable hadn't been born yet, the static stations were a great thing to watch if there might be a tornado in your area. Apparently if one formed, it would significantly change the look of the snow on the TV and give you a warning to quickly head to the basement. I never actually saw it happen, but there were a couple times we had local warnings and my parents plopped me down to keep an eye on the TV.
In Ukraine we say that "the image/display is snowing" (зображення/екран сніжить)
Dreh die Antenne nach links, ich krieg nur rauschen hier unten.
It would be white noise, “weißes rauschen”, but nobody ever said the “white” part.
fleas
Ah, I can see that! A stormcloud full of fleas would be extra scary.
Something like that. I always heard it from my parents and grandparents that "it's with fleas" or "you can see with fleas" when that happened. I never knew what was the link between those, but it sounds funny all the time, lol.
In Chiba city, it is described as "The sky above the port"
In Croatia, we call(ed) it 'snow' (snijeg).
The sky above the port.
just "static" in the states in the 1990s. I swear to god, sometimes I could see something in it. Could have been psychosomatic.
Sometimes there was channel interference or something for sure. I know this because sometimes I would stay up late at night to try to see boobies. I don't remember the reason or channel or anything, maybe it was on an adult channel and it mostly wouldn't come through because it wasn't being paid for? Back when you othersise had to find boobies in the woods on paper, or had a friend with a single father who worked a lot.
The world was a lot more simple back then. I can't imagine the stress of being a kid today.
In Poland we say that it's show or it's snowing.
'Sneeuw' in the Netherlands.
'Ruis' in Flanders
In China we call it snow and describe the sound using the exact onomatopoeia as rain
Salt and pepper fight!
We call this "fleas" in my language
"Bures" -- javanese
It's "neige" which means "snow" in french
Yea white noise and static
Salt and pepper fight!
Śnieg: snow
Salt and pepper fight.
Polish: śnieg (snow) or kasza/kaszka/kaszana (groats)
We called it "flies" or "snow".
Rice
"Snow" in Norway. Alternatively "Snowball fight"
Drizzle
Snowfall in finnish.
turkish: "karıncalanmış"
Snow flakes