Snow!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This week, after 41cm of snow (16 inches, for you non-metrics) fell on my fair city in the space of 12 hours, I lamented to my boyfriend that it was a waste for me since it was the wrong sort of snow for snowman-making. The poor man was quite confused. Snowmen are made of snow; therefore, with 41cm of snow, I should be able to make quite a snowman. I tried to explain to him that there are several kinds of snow, not all of which are useful in snowman construction. “But”, he said, “snow is snow.”

:eek: The horror!

For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to do so, allow me to warn you against making that sort of comment to a Canadian. Because they, as I, will feel obligated by national duty to educate the ignorant.

Having lived in Montreal my whole life, I’m familiar with winter. Snow is part of the scenery for six months each year. But snow isn’t *just *snow. There are so many different kinds of snow, and I’d like to introduce you to a few.

Sticky snow
Thick, wet, heavy snow that’s hell to shovel and tons of fun to play in. It makes a juicy crunch as you stick a shovel into it and cramps up your muscles as you try to heave it of the driveway. As you walk through it, you leave perfect molds of your boots behind you. Sitting in sticky snow while wearing snowpants leaves a lovely wrinkly butt imprint and leaves you a snow chair for later. This is the snow for forts, snowballs, snow angels, and snowmen.

Fluffy snow
This is the only snow ever depicted in movies and TV. These are the perfect flakes that keep their shape as they land on you and drift into cotton candy tufts as they pile up on the ground. The snow spills over your boots as you walk through drifts, and it’s easy to kick up into snow clouds. You can’t really walk on this kind of snow – you walk through it, leaving small depressions but no real footprints. Attempts to make snowballs out of this stuff result in handfuls of fluff, which are very ineffective at subduing an enemy.

Icy snow
Worse when it’s windy, these are the little stinging ice needles that pinch at your face if it’s not properly covered up with a scarf. On the ground, they make a granular surface, and if you’d pick up a handful and pour it out slowly you’d get a pyramid shape as though you’d been pouring sand.

Sparkly snow
Looks like tiny diamonds on the lawn and in the trees. Best appreciated when the moon is full.

Styrofoam snow
Mostly a result of extreme cold air acting on snow that’s already on the ground, it makes a horrid squeaky Styrofoam sound as you walk on it.

Christmas snow
Makes the world into a huge snow globe on Christmas Eve. Pretty, slowly swirling flakes that make everyone happy and also bring Frosty back to life after he’s melted into a puddle.

Have I missed any?

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Yellow Snow

3

It all sucks, unluess you’re snowboarding on it.
:stuck_out_tongue:

4

You are lucky. The storm kind of wimped out here, and we only have a little snow.

You shall have to educate him. Physically. Outside. :slight_smile:

I call this ‘packing show’, because you can pack it ionto a ball in your mittened hands and it will stay together. I believe that it actually melts slightly under the pressure of packing and refreezes when the pressure is released, binding itself togerther. It requires temperatures a few degrees below freezing, and (I suspect) humid conditions.

It’s very beautiful, I agree. It requires low to no wind to survive, though; wind blows the fluffs about, and they bang together and are reduced to grains, which pile into drifts.

On colder days (ten degrees below freezing and below), snow will fall like this. Often on very cold days, it can be blown quite a distance, and off buildings and off the ground, with the result that tiny ice crystals sparkle as they drift through the air.

This is one of the two ways I know when it’s below -18C: the snow squeaks under my boots. The other: my nose hairs freeze up on the first inhale.

I’ll expand this slightly to include another form of icy precipitation.

Freezing Rain:
Supercooled rain that is liquid but below the freezing point. The raindrops freeze instantly on the surfaces they land on and build up a hard layer of solid ice.

There are forms that snow and ice take after they have landed on the gound.

Soft fluffy blankets and marshmallows:
What you get when fluffy show falls straight down. This is the picture-postcard snow that covers the top surfaces of branches and fenceposts, clings to slopes, and absorbs sound to soften the noise of the city. Sadly, it is fragile and doesn’t last this way. Wind, sun, and precipitation will change it.

Drifts:
Drifts are the result of wind blowing previously-fallen snow around. Wind scoops snow from some areas and deposits it in other areas. Fluff is often raw material for drifts, but the snow particles are rolled and tumbled and broken apart to become ice grains. Drifts tend to be stronger and denser than styrofoam snow, and drier than packing snow.

Crusts:
What you get when the weather warms suddenly, and rain or freezing rain falls, then the temperature drops. The top surface of a layer of snow will melt and refreeze under a light rainfall, forming a hard surface. This is especially efficient when freezing rain is falling: landscapes, streets, buildings, and cars can be glazed with smooth ice. This is very dangerous.

On snow, the crust forms a hard surface that protects the soft snow underneath. Ypu walk across it punching holes in the crust with your boots. If the crust is thick enough over the snow, it will support you and you can slide around.

Slush:
Half-melted snow. It builds up on streets, where the addition of salt males snow melt at lower temperatures, or in low areas where water is flowing under the snow. It slops and is splashed messily by passing cars and pedestrians, but can also half-reainn footprints and tire-tracks. Slush requires temperatires near freezing; if the trmperature drops after it forms, it freezes to solid, bumpy ice.

“Outflow ice”:
What you get when water flows out of “warm” sunny melting snowbanks during the day and then freezes during the colder night. Multiple daily flows can build up unexpected bumpy surfaces, treacherous to walk on.

5

The kind that comes down in little round pellets. Down here at the bottom of snow country, we sometimes get a couple inches of them. Nasty stuff, it likes to show up during thunder-snow storms.

6

Quite. Have you explained to him the “it’s cold when it’s sunny and warm when it’s grey” paradox yet?

7

That’s not really a paradox, is it? The clouds are fluffy and hold in the heat. :slight_smile:

8

You know, I’ve been alive for 30-something years now, and have always lived in parts of the world that had seasons (including winters with snow), and I still don’t get how it can be both the brightest, sunniest day of the year and the coldest, most frigid one.

(I mean, I get it in an “I understand the science” way, I just don’t get it in a “but it’s sunny, dammit!” way.)