"Snow"

We don't get cicadas in Washington state, so we don't get to experience the billions of them emerging after 17 years like in other parts of the US.  Like a biblical swarm of locusts.  However, we do have cottonwood trees and it's that time of the year when they release their seeds EVERYWHERE.  I mean, it's crazy - there is so much of it around that it looks like snow.  Snowflakes floating around in the air, and snow piled up on the ground.  Fortunately we had some heavy rain today, so I think that has helped clean things up.  And fortunately this stuff doesn't usually hang around for too long.  But I'm so clueless that I couldn't even tell you which trees are the cottonwoods releasing all this fluff.  But there must be a lot of them near where I live.