Is it true that snow is good in the winter?
If there is much less snow than usual, the ground freezes and this hampers growth in the spring?
Yes. Given similar ambient temperatures, the ground will freeze harder if exposed than if covered by a blanket of snow because, odd as it might seem, the snow acts as an insulator (actually, the air trapped inside and beneath the snow is what does most of the insulating).
Two parts. First, the ground needs water in the winter as in the summer to maintain the soil moisture. Some droughts happen in the winter. Second, snow acts as an insulator for the ground, and without it, the ground freezes more deeply.
I don’t know as that the * ground * needs snow, but the plant life certainly does. Without snow, the ground freezes deeper and harder (and does lose moisture), so plants and bulbs that are borderline for that particular growing zone may die back.
Part of the conceptual hurdle with this is that we tend to think of ‘cold’ as an entity that has separate existence from ‘heat’. In fact there is only heat and the transfer of heat - ‘cold’ is the comparative absence of heat.
Icebergs and hot coals are both ‘warm’ - it’s just that the former is rather less warm than the latter.
Ergo, the snow is warmer than the air, and keeps the ground warm.
Not unless you have magic snow that produces heat. Most snow I’ve seen was too inert to support an exothermic reaction. It should be at the temperature of the air around it. It insulates by trapping air and preventing convective heat loss from the ground. You won’t get the same insulating effect from a layer of solid ice even though it’s made out of the same stuff as snow.
I was being funny.
Ha! That´s what you thought. Why don´t you leave the dangerous work to professionals, son? Somebody´s liable to get hurt. (Probably in a funny way like getting kicked in the balls or losing an eye…)
So maybe we should cover our yard with a wet blanket?
yes, I’m kidding
I’ve occasionally read about post-thaw snow as being particularly good for the ground, and that farmers would plow it into their fields. I’ve never figured out what in the snow might be helpful, since it’s just water - it’s not like there’s nitrogen in there or anything, is there?
No nitrogen, but it does contain dihydrogen monoxide.
Ooh…dangerous stuff. Did you know that Dihydrogen Monoxide is directly involved in the deaths of thousands of people worldwide every year? And DM contamination is making much of our underground drinking water supply unsafe.
Not so fast; agricultural fleece (not a wet blanket, but a dry, gauzy one) is quite widely used; this seemingly insubstantial material, when properly applied, traps a thin layer of air at soil level and can actually make a significant difference to soil temperature.