Talk:Snow

Edit request 2.2.2012

"The largest known piece of ice to fall to earth was an ice block 6 meters (20 ft) across that fell in Scotland on 13 August 1849.[68]"

I think this is total BS, and at least the source is obviously unreliable! 80.231.220.128 (talk) 07:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Updated, thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 07:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

History, Culture, Religion, Etc.

I think this topic deserves a treatment of some of these topics. I'm pretty sure the snow has cropped up in human experience, and I think that deserves a bit of coverage along with the extensive scientific overview. Corbmobile

Ice caps

Much of the earths fresh water is held by gigantic glacier|glacier in the north and south poles, formed by falling snow over milennia.

There's a different between glaciers, ice fields, and polar caps. Are we sure that caps are formed from falling snow? I was under the impression that Antarctica got almost no precipitation at all, and the ice sheet expanded and contracted by simple melting and freezing.

The ice caps are formed from falling snow. Almost no precipitation is not equal to no precipitation at all; if it never gets above freezing, it will eventually accumulate no matter how little falls. -- Paul Drye

Snizzle?

In the "Types" section "Snizzle is listed as:

Extremely small snow/ice particles that fall lightly, almost like drizzle that is frozen. This kind of snow is very common in Michigan.

Is this real? Particularly the term, not the frozen drizzle form of precipitation. Maybe I'm just skeptical when I see "izzle" on the end of a word?

occurrence

In the United States, states and parts of states which are usually covered with snow in a typical winter include the New England states, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, western Colorado, Idaho, and high-altitude areas of Washington, Oregon, and Utah, although the dry area just east of the Rockies in eastern Montana and Wyoming and the western Dakotas is quite often snowless. Neighboring states and high-altitude areas in other states also are quite often covered with snow, but in states farther south or at lower elevation, it may snow for a day but usually melts within a week. Canada is usually completely covered, except for the more temperate area around Vancouver, British Columbia, and occasionally southern Alberta. Alaska is likewise covered except for some coastal areas and islands.

This was removed, because it is not strictly related to "snow". An encyclopedic article should contain important and or interesting facts. The "word records" are quite o.k. but these here are kind of badly selected. Too much if the intension is just to give an example. Globaly not well selected if intended to give an overview for snow occurrence. And to mention all places of the world would confuse the reader more than informing.

Sping?

What is sping? Is it a skiing term (I know nothing about skiing) or is it simply a misspelling of spring?

Mount Baker/Rainier

I changed switched the units around for these two mountains as per wikipedias policy. The coop stations that recorded the snow did so in inch increments and the meter is a conversion and thus parenthesized as supplemental

By late spring, snow densities often exceed 50% of water

50%???? that looks too much,and this is not said in the link

Great Pictures

Kudos for adding them whosoever did.

I'm surprised to see a picture of snowflakes. I didn't think you could actually photograph a snowflake without a microscope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pslamba (talk • contribs) 03:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Duplicate material

There is a lot of duplicate material in the article which could be eliminated. Caeruleancentaur (talk) 03:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

You are an editor, be bold and fix it. It is hard for others to know exactly what you are talking about to try to fix the problems you have identified. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 03:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Too cold to snow ?

There is a phrase (in UK English) that "it's too cold to snow" which does not appear to make any sense because otherwise how is it that the poles are covered in snow? To give the benefit of the doubt, I expect the phrase relates to noticeable large conglomerations of snowflakes and not to small ice crystals. If that is the case, then could it be "too cold to snow (in an obvious way)"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.111.114.1 (talk) 14:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Intro-Too Long

I added this template because the intro could be trimmed. I am bolding the bits below I think should be kept, my opinion is that the rest verge into detail:

Snow is a type of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. Snowflakes come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Types which fall in the form of a ball due to melting and refreezing, rather than a flake, are known as graupel, with ice pellets and snow grains as examples of graupel. Snowfall amount and its related liquid equivalent precipitation amount are determined using a variety of different rain gauges.

The process of precipitating snow is called snowfall. Snowfall tends to form within regions of upward motion of air around a type of low-pressure system known as an extratropical cyclone. Snow can fall poleward of their associated warm fronts and within their comma head precipitation patterns, which is called such due to its comma-like shape of the cloud and precipitation pattern around the poleward and west sides of extratropical cyclones. Where relatively warm water bodies are present, for example due to water evaporation from lakes, lake-effect snowfall becomes a concern downwind of the warm lakes within the cold cyclonic flow around the backside of extratropical cyclones. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy. Thundersnow is possible within a cyclone's comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy snow is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, if the atmosphere is cold enough.

Once on the ground, snow can be categorized as powdery when fluffy, granular when it begins the cycle of melting and refreezing, and eventually ice once it packs down, after multiple melting and refreezing cycles, into a dense mass called snow pack. When powdery, snow moves with the wind from the location where it originally landed, forming deposits called snowdrifts which may have a depth of several meters. After attaching to hillsides, blown snow can evolve into a snow slab, which is an avalanche hazard on steep slopes. The existence of a snowpack keeps temperatures colder than they would be otherwise, as the whiteness of the snow reflects most sunlight, and the absorbed heat goes into melting the snow rather than increasing its temperature. The water equivalent of snowfall is measured to monitor how much liquid is available to flood rivers from meltwater which will occur during the upcoming spring. Snow cover can protect crops from extreme cold. If snowfall stays on the ground for a series of years uninterrupted, the snowpack develops into a mass of ice called glacier. Fresh snow absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape due to the trapped air between snowflakes acting to minimize vibration. These acoustic qualities quickly minimize, and reverse once a layer of freezing rain falls on top of snow cover. Walking across snowfall produces a squeaking sound at low temperatures. For motion pictures, the sound of people walking across snow is duplicated through the use cornstarch, salt, and cat litter.

The term snow storm can describe a heavy snowfall while a blizzard involves snow and wind, obscuring visibility. Snow shower is a term for an intermittent snowfall, while flurry is used for very light, brief snowfalls. Snow can fall more than a meter at a time during a single storm in flat areas, and meters at a time in rugged terrain, such as mountains. When snow falls in significant quantities, travel by foot, car, airplane and other means becomes highly restricted, but other methods of mobility become possible: the use of snowmobiles, snowshoes and skis. When heavy snow occurs early in the fall, significant damage occurs to trees still in leaf. Areas with significant snow each year can store the winter snow within an ice house, which can be used to cool structures during the following summer. A variation on snow has been observed on Venus, though composed of metallic compounds and occurring at a substantially higher temperature.

Prylon (talk) 00:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"Dry snow"

I just saw something hilarious on The Weather Channel while waiting for a forecast. In a show about Ouray, they said that storms coming from the Pacific dump their water on the coastal ranges then dry out over the desert, so after losing their moisture they dump "dry snow" on Ouray.  ;) I think somebody was just pulling my leg, but I should just ask, just in case there's a way to make sense out of a statement like that... Wnt (talk) 19:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It makes as much sense as dry thunderstorms being devoid of moisture. None. Thegreatdr (talk) 17:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at this website, it describes wet vs dry snow. http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/346/ ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 17:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It was worded oddly. In that link, he's just comparing dense to less dense snowfall. It all has water equivalent. Thegreatdr (talk) 18:16, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Snow on other planets

The section equivalents on other planets clearly needs to cover CO2 precipitation on Mars - for which there is extensive literature including MOLA observations of falling snow in the polar night. Pluto also has an atmosphere that condenses during its long orbit. In both cases, it is the main ingredient of the atmosphere condensing, not an included component. Mars also displays condensation of water ice as frosts. It is not clear if water ice snow(flakes) ever form on Mars. A Phoenix Lander Lidar observation describes "snow" not distinguish between H2O and CO2 2SickNick (talk) 05:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Acoustic properties

The OGG media file in the "Acoustic properties" section is awful. It's labelled as "Snow falling in Scotland" but it consists mostly of the loud sound of an airplane(?) flying overhead and other distracting background noises; there is no sound of snow falling to be heard. So I deleted it. Hopefully someone else can get a suitable recording of the sound of snow falling. — Loadmaster (talk) 20:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

While not ideal, it definitely does have the sound of snow (sounds like static). I have re-added it for now, but it should be replaced if possible.-RunningOnBrains^(talk) 06:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 128.178.175.235, 1 December 2010

{{edit semi-protected}}

Can someone change the number of water molecules per snowflake from 10^18 to 10^19 in the snowflake section? It is incorrectly cited from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070213-snowflake_2.html

I already changed it in the snowflake article. Moreover 10^19 seems far more realistic to me, as it corresponds to 0.3µl (instead of 30nl for 10^18).

Best regards,

Jens

128.178.175.235 (talk) 15:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done Thanks, and well spotted. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 23:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Emoreth, 12 December 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} In "Snow blindness" section, please change "However, when there is also cloud cover because snow is falling, light" to "However, when there is also cloud cover, light". There does not have to be snow actually falling in order to create the light-reflection effect this sentence describes.

In "Effects on human society" section, please change "This allowed the ice to be used in summer for refrigeration or medical uses, which is one method of conserving electrical usage" to "This allows the snow to be used through the summer for refrigeration and air conditioning, which requires far less electricity than traditional cooling methods." This is more accurate according to the source article.

In "Agriculture" section, please add, "Snow also acts as a "poor man's fertilizer," because it contains nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plants, which it transfers to the soil." Reference source here: http://www.adn.com/2008/10/08/550298/blanket-of-snow-is-a-poor-mans.html

In "Recreation" section, please change, "snow angels, a popular past-time for children" to "snow angels, a popular pastime for children." "Past-time" is not a word; "pastime" means "recreational activity." Emoreth (talk) 15:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Changed all, thank you, except for fertilizer - we need reliable source for that information. The link you provided reads as original research - it is unclear whether there is any real effect, and how geographically reproducible that effect is (say, people from Nepal might read this article and think they don't need to buy fertilizer :-) Materialscientist (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request: effects on human society

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>In areas with abundant snowfall, such as Northern Japan, people harvest snow and store it surrounded by insulation in ice houses. This allows the snow to be used through the summer for refrigeration and air conditioning, which requires far less electricity than traditional cooling methods.[81]

This paragraph is misleading at best. Snow harvesting is limited to one project in Funagata, Yamagata Prefecture - as noted in the footnote above. The wording of the article makes it seem like a widespread cultural practice, with individuals harvesting snow for personal use, when in fact it's a single operation maintained by city officials.

Further, Yamagata prefecture is not "Northern Japan", and it certainly isn't in Hokkaido, where the "Northern Japan" hypertext takes the reader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.46.30.76 (talk) 01:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I have corrected the article per source and your comment. I vaguely recall seeing on TV similar practice in Hokkaido (snow is collected from nearby areas and piled up). This was more for food storage than for snow storage though. In other words, the practice might not be isolated, but we need references for that. Materialscientist (talk) 01:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

About the illustration

Hi, shouldn't the illustration with the description "An animation (satellite images) showing seasonal snow changes." be specified that it's only showing the northern hemisphere in winter? --Jcaraballo (talk) 22:06, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

When I click the image, I see changes in both hemispheres. Materialscientist (talk) 23:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Distribution of snow

This article is completely bereft of information on where snow commonly, rarely or never occurs. I don't even know where to look for this information from the links in this article. This is a huge omission, can someone with more knowledge on the subject fix this?GSTQ (talk) 08:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Countries with snow should be listed

Agree with the former poster. Since it will be fewer than 20 countries where snow are common on a yearly basis, you should list up all of them. To help you going, here's a partial list:
Countries with yearly snow: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Svalbard(under Norway), Mongolia, Canada, USA, Greenland (under Denmark), Switzerland, Austria, China and Japan.
Countries that don't have yearly snow but bordering snow countries/regions: UK (not even Scotland), Denmark (mainland), South Africa, Australia.

Countries that might have yearly snow, find out: Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Falkland Islands(UK), North Korea, South Korea, Kasakstan, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine.

A huge number of other countries have snow on a few mountaintops or ski villages (i.e. Kenya and Germany), but as a whole it's not typical for the country.

Stein S., Oslo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.209.93.233 (talk) 12:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

That's a great suggestion. People come to wikipedia looking for that kind of information. Mixaphone (talk) 20:05, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

It would be better as a standalone list. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 22:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Color--Diffuse?! I don't think so.

The article says "Although the ice is clear, scattering of light by the crystal facets and hollows/imperfections mean that the crystals often appear white in color due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small ice particles.[15]" I disagree, or at least think this should be clarified: While snow is a pretty good diffuse reflector as a bulk material, each snowflake looks white not because of diffuse reflection but because of a combination of specular reflection, refraction, and total internal reflection. In bulk this averages out to diffuse reflection, but it is a leap to say that ice is clear but facets and imperfections make them white due to diffuse reflection. Let's clean that up. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 13:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Split, Croatia as "the southern limit of expected snow fall in Europe"

Since on the Adriatic coasts of Italy (not to speak about the Bulgarian Black sea coasts) snow-capped coasts are pretty common in winter (here snow-capped Vasto at 42'11" N last winter), saying Split (43'30" N) is the "the southern limit of expected snow fall at coast in Europe" is nonsense.--Carnby (talk) 14:53, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Er... why has my edit been undone?

The video on this article that says underneath it 'Snow falling in Scotland', it's wrong! It's not Scotland, if you click on the video itself the user who uploaded it clearly says it is was filmed in Trinidad. Why would he/she be wrong, when they're the ones that filmed it?? So I am changing 'Scotland' back to 'Trinidad' on this article.