"driving snow" and "over the down"

[stoneman]

What do the following phrases mean?
"driving snow" and "over the down"

The full sentence is

"The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over
the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a
little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand."

Do the phrases have any equivalent words or phrases?

 

[emsr2d2]

There are a lot of spaces missing between words in your quote. Please click on "Edit Post", add the missing spaces, then click "Save".

 

[Rover_KE]

...and please state the source and author of your quotation.

 

[stoneman]

I was corrected this quote. It is the book with name "Invisible man". H. G. Wells.

 

[stoneman]

Piscean. It is very useful informations. Thank you! ​

 

[Tdol]

Nowadays, I mostly see driving snow without the indefinite article used in your text.

 

[konungursvia]

See definition #1 of 'driving' here: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/driving

See definition #1 of 'down' here: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/down#down-3

Ah, what a relief. I'm happy to see that what I pictured upon reading "over the down" was exactly that. It's such a rare word nowadays, and I find I sometimes get them wrong if I haven't seen them in a decade or two.

 

[Tdol]

Possibly because it survives in names like the South Downs, it's not such an obscure word in BrE.

 

[Roman55]

And I lived for almost the same length of time in the Weald, which is between the North and South Downs, so for me it is much more common to hear it in the plural.