# Who hasn't seen snow? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 17, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935 "2008-01-17T21:36:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/21 "2008-01-18T06:46:08Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet] I’m not scared of snow but I’ve never seen a lake or river frozen over. The whole idea freaks me out. Walking on water? [/QUOTE] I’ve stood in the middle of a frozen lake up in the Alberta Rockies in winter, and looked down through about three feet of ice. Beautiful, clear mountain water makes beautiful clear ice. Wish I’d had my skates with me! ---
**Author:** ![Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bites_when_provoked/32/18073_2.png) [@Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bites_When_Provoked)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/22 "2008-01-18T06:52:12Z")
I’ve never seen snow. I’m from South Australia, and 34 years old. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@The\_Tof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tof)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/23 "2008-01-18T11:02:26Z")
I had never seen snow until I was about 14. Doesn’t snow in San Diego. Snows up here in Portland occasionally though. (In fact, just snowed today- no accumulation though, just flakes 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/24 "2008-01-18T13:24:49Z")
[QUOTE=Noel Prosequi] Those of you whose circumstances lead you to take it for granted I fear have lost something wonderful. [/QUOTE] I’ve lived in snow areas all my life and I assure you that for at least some of us the shine still hasn’t worn off. I still find the first snowfall of winter magical, it’s not unusual for an office full of corporate drones to go to the window to watch it fall. The hush and quiet of a dawn over a fresh blanket of snow in the middle of winter is still magical to a lot of us. ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/25 "2008-01-18T13:52:09Z")
I first saw snow aged 30, flying into the middle of a Chicago winter that registered a 20-year high December snowfall. It was incredible. I saw it shortly afterwards in much smaller quantities in NYC, then haven’t see it since. I would love to try another Chicago winter holiday and see snow again. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/26 "2008-01-18T13:54:34Z")
I grew up in SoCal. We saw it on the nearby mountain tops every winter. The first time I touched the stuff I was 20. I wish that was the last time too, but now I live where it falls a couple times every winter. Yuck. aside: I think anyone who grew up in/around LA & says they never “saw” snow really means “up close & pesonal”; you could hardly avoid seeing it on the mountains. Down in San Diego there aren’t tall enough mountains to get snow, so they’d have to be away from town just to see it even in the distance. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/27 "2008-01-18T14:55:36Z")
[QUOTE=Broomstick] I’ve lived in snow areas all my life and I assure you that for at least some of us the shine still hasn’t worn off. I still find the first snowfall of winter magical, it’s not unusual for an office full of corporate drones to go to the window to watch it fall. The hush and quiet of a dawn over a fresh blanket of snow in the middle of winter is still magical to a lot of us. [/QUOTE] Same here, but I do admit that by the third or snow storm, it becomes a drag to clean off and have to be careful driving through. But yeah, it’s magic. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/28 "2008-01-18T15:27:13Z")
The hush that a snowfall makes is pretty magical, but there is also loud snow. Obnoxiously loud, sometimes. Ping ping ping howl rattle. The only thing that seems to quiet it is a cup of cocoa and a good movie. ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/29 "2008-01-18T21:57:58Z")
Friend of mine moved to New England from Cali. He told me that when he was little, his mother told them that snow was gross and slimy. They were really surprised when snow fell and it didn’t make the world disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/30 "2008-01-18T22:02:54Z")
I’m the opposite of never-seen-snow. It wasn’t until I was about twelve that I figured out that most places don’t get 250 inches of snow a year, and that to some people, it was a really big deal. Despite having lived for over ten years in a place that gets hardly any snow, it’s still hard for me to grok - it’s one of those facts that my head knows but my gut flat out doesn’t believe. I remember when I was a kid reading books and seeing TV shows where the kids in the book/show would be all excited because it was snowing out and it just didn’t compute. Snow? Exciting? Must be a really bad fictional device. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/31 "2008-01-18T22:18:33Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] Funny. Even funnier, it snows in Hawaii. [/QUOTE] Yep. They even have real snow skiing at the top of the highest mountain on the Big Island. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/32 "2008-01-19T03:12:40Z")
I’ve seen snow on the ground, but have never been in falling snow. To this day, I have no idea how big a snowflake is. Can you see the points, or is it microscopic? I’ve lived in Southern California my whole life. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/33 "2008-01-19T12:24:41Z")
I went to college in Pittsburgh, and one of my friends there was from Miami. He was in his freshmen year and had never seen snow before. He started getting impatient, waiting. Finally it snowed one day during class time and we walked out to find an inch or so of fluffy white stuff. We started making snowballs and throwing them at each other, all except for Mr. Miami, who just made a snowball and held it in his hands. He stared at it with a smile of such sublime childish glee that the rest of us stopped throwing and watched him… …until he suddenly yelped in pain and threw it about fifty feet straight up, at which point we laughed our butts off at the poor guy 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/34 "2008-01-19T13:34:12Z")
[QUOTE=wonderlust] I’ve seen snow on the ground, but have never been in falling snow. To this day, I have no idea how big a snowflake is. Can you see the points, or is it microscopic? I’ve lived in Southern California my whole life. [/QUOTE] You see white dots when its falling - sometimes big white dots falling slowly, sometimes little teeny white dots falling almost like rain, you can’t really see the crystalline structure with your naked eye - usually. Sometimes, if you catch a large, clear flake on a dark cold mitten, you can see something that looks a little like the paper cutouts you made in elementary school, if the artist where a three inch tall fairy. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/35 "2008-01-19T14:07:20Z")
[QUOTE=wonderlust] I’ve seen snow on the ground, but have never been in falling snow. To this day, I have no idea how big a snowflake is. Can you see the points, or is it microscopic? [/QUOTE] The size of a snowflake varies - it depends on atmospheric conditions. But sometimes you do get perfect little lacey snowflakes. They’ll melt instantly if they touch skin, but if you have a nice thick glove on, like \*\*Dangerosa \*\*says, then you get a few seconds or even a minute to check them out. Most individual snowflakes are about 2 mm in diameter, although they often clump together to make bigger light snow-clumps that fall en masse. I can’t seem to find a picture online that shows the scale. If it happens to snow soon, I’ll try to snap a picture for you, but it’s a crapshoot. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/36 "2008-01-19T14:57:40Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] They even have real snow skiing at the top of the highest mountain on the Big Island. [/QUOTE] Well, sort of. There’s certainly nothing resembling a lift or any other ski-related facilities. And it’s rare to find enough snow for anything much more than “Hey, look at me, I’m skiing in _Hawaii_!” I’d guess no one takes any skis they like up there - you can probably figure on their rapid deterioration by the lava-derived rock. If you fall, better do so on snow only - the rock would be nasty. The altitude (13,700’) would be an issue. And the area is considered environmentally sensitive and sacred to native Hawaiians - so I suspect that frolicking there is increasingly frowned on. BTW, it’s reasonably easy to see how someone living in Hawaii would not have seen snow: most of the population is in and near Honolulu, which isn’t within sight of either Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa, the two places that get snow. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/37 "2008-01-19T15:02:48Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] The size of a snowflake varies - it depends on atmospheric conditions… Most individual snowflakes are about 2 mm in diameter… [/QUOTE] I received a great little book for christmas: _Ken Libbrecht’s Field Guide to Snowflakes_. The author recommends a 10x jeweler’s loupe for studying snowflakes. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/38 "2008-01-19T16:16:39Z")
Thanks for the info! It sounds so wonderful. Now I have a new shopping list: gloves jeweler’s loupe plane ticket to someplace snowy ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/39 "2008-01-19T16:36:29Z")
The other day I was waiting for the bus, and it was snowing. Just flurries, but they were BIG flakes! I caught one on my glove that was probably at least 7 mm across, maybe more, and I could see the six points quite clearly (it helped that my glove was black!) I looked at it for about a minute, and then I just couldn’t help myself; I poked it! It promptly melted, of course, but it was still a great little moment. > [@Athena](#): > > I’m the opposite of never-seen-snow. It wasn’t until I was about twelve that I figured out that most places don’t get 250 inches of snow a year, and that to some people, it was a really big deal. Despite having lived for over ten years in a place that gets hardly any snow, it’s still hard for me to grok - it’s one of those facts that my head knows but my gut flat out doesn’t believe. I feel the same way. I spent 6 years in Southern Ontario, and while the Hamilton-Toronto area _does_ get snow, they typically get less than Montreal/the Eastern Townships where I grew up. So a significant snowfall, such as 10-15 cm, would cause a lot of alarm and excitement, while it takes about 3 times as much here before people really begin to bitch about the inconvenience! A large part of it, though, is that their snow removal efforts aren’t nearly as good or fast, so snow really piles up on the roads, and a lot of people don’t have winter tires or really know how to drive through heavy snow, so there are more accidents. It was hard for me to get used to people’s reactions to snow. Now that I’m back in Montreal, I admit I was a little shocked at the first major snowfall we had here, and then I realised I must have grown a little soft out in Hamilton! hehehe ---
**Author:** ![Rascal\_s\_Mom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a698b9/32.png) [@Rascal\_s\_Mom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rascal_s_Mom)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935/40 "2008-01-19T17:04:56Z")
Lived in the Madison, Wisconsin area my entire life. There is snow to spare here and has been since the first week in December. People, have at it! Snow sale! Half price! But I must tell you, it is also 10 below right now. Sunny and pretty, but colder than… really cold. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-hasnt-seen-snow/433935.md?page=3)