A portmanteau, or a combination of the phrase “snow duster.” A snow duster referred to a storm or shower which combined snow and dust.
Get the entire The Worst Hard Time LitChart as a printable PDF.
Snuster Term Timeline in The Worst Hard Time
The timeline below shows where the term Snuster appears in The Worst Hard Time. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 11: Triage
...fall in No Man’s Land, but they were dark flakes. The nesters called it a “snuster.” During these storms, which were very frequent in 1934, “visibility was reduced to a quarter...
(full context)