What does the progressive tense 「〜ていて」 of the 「〜ている」 form mean?


The sentence at hand:

> 雪がたくさん降っていて、…

My interpretation would be that 「降っていて」 is the て-form of 「降っている」, which is the
ている-form of 「降る」.

Intuitively I would understand this as something like "It keeps on snowing",
but I'm unsure what the progressive tense of the ている-form means.

I've found a few questions
[answers](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/34332/whats-the-
grammar-of-%E3%81%A6-form-%E3%81%84%E3%81%A6) regarding the use of 〜ていて in
different contexts and different words, but none really seem to apply here.




This is nothing more mysterious than "A lot of snow is falling and ...".

Your grammar analysis is correct that 降っていて is the て-form of 降っている, but there
is nothing progressive about this second て. There is no hidden いる on the end.
This is just the normal て that joins clauses. There is however a hidden clause
that comes after the whole thing. This may be hinted at by the surrounding
context. The Japanese like to leave sentences unfinished and let you fill in
the rest for yourself; this is quite normal. Without the rest of the context
you will have to guess for yourself what might have been implied to come
after. For example, if the conversation had been about going shopping it might
have been "...and we can't get the car out".




This is nothing more mysterious than "A lot of snow is falling and ...".

Your grammar analysis is correct that 降っていて is the て-form of 降っている, but there
is nothing progressive about this second て. There is no hidden いる on the end.
This is just the normal て that joins clauses. There is however a hidden clause
that comes after the whole thing. This may be hinted at by the surrounding
context. The Japanese like to leave sentences unfinished and let you fill in
the rest for yourself; this is quite normal. Without the rest of the context
you will have to guess for yourself what might have been implied to come
after. For example, if the conversation had been about going shopping it might
have been "...and we can't get the car out".

