the snow-eater wind of the rocky mountains is also called the
Chinook is claimed by popular folk-etymology to mean' ice-eater', however it is the name of the people in the region where the usage was first derived. The reference to a wind or weather system, simply' a Chinook', originally meant a warming wind from the ocean into the interior regions of the Pacific Northwest of the USA (the Chinook people lived near the ocean, along the lower Columbia River).