lots and lots of them! geralt & co arrive in beauclair in early october, and promptly get snowed in.
when they arrive, it's not snowed yet, it's still rich with color (description of vineyards):
the gentle hillsides were covered with neat avenues of evenly trimmed bushes like columns of soldiers. The ground was carpeted with red and gold leaves.
but winter comes soon, as the banquet describes... "autumn was passing and winter was coming." geralt decides to stay in toussaint to wait out the winter, as dandelion reasoned to him:
‘You’d better believe it. October is ending, and the weather is visibly worsening. Snow will fall in the passes any day now.’
toussaint is in the sansretour valley, and is surrounded on all sides by mountains (the same range as mount gorgon). there are only four exits, four mountain passes in each of the cardinal directions.
and once it starts snowing, these passes get blocked, so anyone in toussaint gets stuck there for the winter.
geralt and the steward fierabras have a highly symbolic discussion about this in chapter 4, and i won't post it because it's pretty long, but it starts with geralt marvelling about merchants - and fierabras says that in truth, some of them have been stuck here since the autumn - much like geralt and his hanza!
this conversation is also when we learn that by saovine (end of october), it had snowed:
‘What do you think, Mr Fierabras, will the winter last long?’
‘There were frosts at Samhain. And the saying goes, “When at Samhain there’s ice, dress warm and nice”.’*
‘I see. And your vines? Won’t the winter damage them?’
‘It’s been colder.’
* adapted translation of „Gdy w Saovine mróz, ciepłe gacie włóż".
so we can assume the snow started in late october, went throughout november, and was still present in january when they left.
most of the snow descriptions we have come from yule evening (chapter 3):
A night sky, cloudless, bright from the moon and the stars. Hills, and on their slopes vineyards dusted with snow.
Outside, at the foot of the castle walls, they were enfolded by the cold and wind from the hills. The night was bright, the sky cloudless and starry. The moonlight sparkled on the swathes of fresh, white snow lying on the vineyards.
They went at a walk down the snow-covered hillside towards the highway, which was clearly marked by a sparse avenue of poplars.
Excited by the gallop, he steered Roach straight at a snow-covered rose bed and made the mare jump it.
but there's also a little in chapter 4, in early january:
They crossed the town and left through the Coopers’ Gate straight into the valley of the Blessure, whose rapids were briskly splashing and foaming. The snow in the fields was only in furrows and hollows, but it was quite cold.
when they leave toussaint, they get caught in a blizzard, in the very one reynart warned them about:
‘Bad weather’s coming,’ said the knight errant, looking eastwards, from where the gale was blowing. ‘Make haste. If snow comes with that wind, if it catches you on the Malheur pass, you’ll be stuck in a trap. And then pray for a thaw to all the gods you venerate, know and understand.’
and just posting this dialogue because it is funny :)
‘Look!’ called Angoulême, outshouting the blizzard. ‘Look there! There are tracks. Someone rode that way!’
‘What are you saying?’ Geralt unwrapped the shawl he had wrapped around his head to protect his ears from frostbite. ‘What are you saying, Angoulême?’
‘Tracks! Hoof prints!’
‘A horse, here?’ Cahir also had to shout. The blizzard intensified, and the River Sansretour, it seemed, whooshed and roared even louder. ‘How could a horse get here?’
‘Look for yourselves!’
‘Indeed,’ commented the vampire, the only member of the company who wasn’t displaying symptoms of being utterly frozen, since he was for obvious reasons just as insensitive to low as to high temperatures. ‘Hoof prints. But are they a horse’s?’
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