# Earth vs. Snowflake **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-vs-snowflake/430349 "2007-12-17T17:09:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@davidn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidn)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-vs-snowflake/430349/1 "2007-12-17T17:09:18Z")
Get out your abacus sliderule, calculator and your best guesstamation skills: Which is greater…the number of grains of sand(earth, dirt, etc.) in the world, or the number of snowflakes that have fallen since the begining of time? thanks for the help. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-vs-snowflake/430349/2 "2007-12-17T17:25:04Z")
Preemptive strike of 11/18/07: [Here’s a big number for you: How many snowflakes have fallen on the earth?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=444705) [QUOTE=SiouxChief] Just to arrive at an upper boundary estimate for the number, you can use these figures (unit conversion and actual calculation left as an exercise for the reader): [Greatest average annual snowfall anywhere in the U.S.](http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/include/article/0,13373,notebook2_12_03,00.html): 430 inches [Age of Earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth) : 4.54 Billion years [Surface Area of Earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth) : 510,065,600 km[sup]2[/sup] [Number of snowflakes in 1 cubic foot of snow](http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/include/article/0,13373,notebook2_12_03,00.html): up to 10 million You can further reduce the estimate by using only the [Land Surface Area of Earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth) : 148,939,100 km[sup]2[/sup] or the [amount of Earth continually covered in snow](http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/include/article/0,13373,notebook2_12_03,00.html): 42 million square miles Interestingly, I found a page where people have attempted a similar calculation, and have arrived at a figure of approximately 10[sup]30[/sup] snowflakes. [Here](http://milwaukee.indymedia.org/en/2007/10/208581.shtml) is the (crappy) page. Go there and search on 1030 to find the relevant text. I wasn’t able to find the worksheet or calculations to which they refer, but it gives us something to go on. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-vs-snowflake/430349/3 "2007-12-17T17:56:13Z")
Would the number of snowflakes fallen be only limited to our planet? ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-vs-snowflake/430349/4 "2007-12-17T18:23:32Z")
He said “since the beginning of time”, so he’s not limiting the time to the age of the earth, anyway. Hah, he blundered!