# Here's a big number for you: How many snowflakes have fallen on the earth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 19, 2007, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013 "2007-11-19T05:26:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013/21 "2007-11-19T16:17:11Z")
[QUOTE=fachverwirrt] Yes. Yes it is. :smack: (Is there a mathematical equivalent to Gaudere?) [/QUOTE] Hah! šŸ˜› All those years of spelling it flawlessly and then comes along this fucking search engineā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013/22 "2007-11-19T17:27:59Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] The fate of civilization hangs on the answer. [/QUOTE] Civilization (as we know it) is fucked. ā˜¹ ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013/23 "2007-11-19T17:37:23Z")
**Unca Cecil** touched on this issue in this column: [How can they be sure no two snowflakes are alike?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_392.html) But he got sidetracked by the googles, ā€œswept up in a fit of literary grandiosity ā€¦ā€ ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013/24 "2007-11-19T17:46:43Z")
[QUOTE=glee] Donā€™t waste your time with these tiny numbers! Way beyond the number of atoms in the Universe (~ 10^80) comes the number of possible games of chess (~10^120), known as the [Shannon Number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number). [/QUOTE] I know your number has already been beaten, but I canā€™t let it pass without mentioning that chess is a game for children who havenā€™t learned to master [Go](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_complexity) (at approx 10[sup]700[/sup] possible games) ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013/25 "2007-11-19T19:30:04Z")
Not hard to make a rough guess, using actual numbers. Iā€™m going to use exponential notation here, so ā€œ1E6ā€ means 1x 10^6, or one million. (Iā€™m not too lazy to spend 10 minutes doing the math, but I am too lazy to do the coding for little exponents. So?) Start with the figure above of 10 million snowflakes per cubic foot of snow, and use a rough average of snow being 10% as dense as water, giving 1E6 snowflakes per cubic foot of melted precipitation. A chart (here:[http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/world-s-surface-water-precipitation-evaporation-and-runoff](http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/world-s-surface-water-precipitation-evaporation-and-runoff)) says current annual precipitation across the world is 116 km^3. Now rather than do more research, Iā€™m going to guess about 1/10 of that is snowfall, taking into account how much rainier the tropics are than the poles. I suspect thatā€™s still way high, but if anyone wants to dig it out, go for it. So 11.6 km^3 of (melted) snowfall. At 3.5E10 ft^3 per km^3, thatā€™s 3.6e11 cubic feet per year. So for one year, we have 3.6e17 snowflakes. Now, I have just about zero data on how to estimate past years compared with current ones. What with ice ages, humid polar swamps of the Jurassic, etc. Iā€™m just going to assume they average to just like current. Age of the earth is estimated often as 4.54 billion years. Iā€™m going to assume it was too hot for snow for say the first billion, so we have 3.54 billion years, which is 3.54e9 years. That give a grand total of 1.3 E 27 snowflakes. Which is, as these things go, within shouting distance of the 1 E 30 given above. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013/26 "2007-11-19T20:21:24Z")
One. Eventually. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-big-number-for-you-how-many-snowflakes-have-fallen-on-the-earth/427013.md?page=1)