Meaning and local context
In New Orleans, “snowball” means A shaved-ice dessert with flavoured syrup, often written sno-ball. A distinctive New Orleans summer food term.
Example in context
A local example is “We stopped for a wedding-cake snowball.” In plain English, that means “We stopped for a wedding-cake-flavoured shaved ice.”
We stopped for a wedding-cake snowball.
We stopped for a wedding-cake-flavoured shaved ice.
How to interpret it
The surrounding sentence is important when interpreting “snowball”. Use the regional sense above when the situation matches the example instead of relying on the word or phrase in isolation.
Tone and caution
It differs from a snow cone in texture and local tradition. Because this is informal regional language, tone and situation should guide whether you use “snowball” yourself or simply recognise it when someone else uses it.