Has anyone had issues with their HVAC blower while driving through snow?

I was playing around yesterday driving through about a foot of powder, maybe 18". About 100 yards in my heater lost power. It was still blowing, just not as strong.
I got out of the powder and the blower came back to full power.

I did it twice to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

I'm lifted 3.5" on 35"s. Just curious if anyone has any idea what the issue is.

I forgot to mention that I was going 20-25mph through it.

 

I know that if I have the heater going and some powder blows into the vents in front of the windshield, it will fog up the window with the defroster on.....like immediately. So it does get some of, if not most, or all, of it's intake air from outside. But I don't think I've ever noticed the fan drag because of it. Maybe you just sucked up too much powder into your fan intake...??? I haven't traced all the ducting to know what goes where, so I really don't know for sure.

 

I thought it pulls fresh air from the cowl in front of the windshield.

What really got my attention was my battery light came on but went off after I drove around on the road.

I've hit a burm too fast before and had snow hit my serpentine belt but it wasn't the case this time.

Maybe I sucked powder into my intake and clogged my filter? But I didn't notice any engine lag.

I dunno.

 

Try putting the HVAC system into recirculate mode when that happens. It stops the system from taking in outside air.

 

I'll try that next time we get a good snow.

 

.......which is right now.........lol

Spent another 8.5 hours plowing today....12 last Sunday. That's for where I work.

Sure glad I bought my new Yamaha 4 wheeler WITH a plow this year....

 

Battery light = no charge/low voltage.
Low voltage = slow blower motor.

 

I understand what the battery light means, what I don't understand is why driving through 18" of powder would cause the low voltage.

 

I wasn't implying you didn't know what the light meant.

Snow on the belt may cause it to slip. But you said it wasn't the case this time. It may have melted by the time you were able to look.
Snow in the radiator fan may cause it to draw more amps.
The only other possibility I can think of is the snow melted on the electrical components and caused a temporary short.

 

No worries, a lot of people don't read the manual. I didn't think about the radiator fan, that's a good point. I'm going to try and do some testing today and see what happens.