50 Fun Facts About Snow

Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets freeze around what?

The droplets are only about 10 micrometres across; the crystals then grow by attracting more supercooled water.

Ice is clear, so why does snow look white?

Diffuse reflection sends every wavelength back out at once, which our eyes read as white.

How many sides does a classic snow crystal have?

Water molecules lock together in a hexagonal lattice as they freeze, so the crystal grows six arms.

Roughly how many water molecules make up a typical snowflake?

They are added to the core at different rates and in different patterns as the flake tumbles through changing conditions.

Which Vermont farmer began photographing snowflakes under a microscope in 1885, revealing their variety?

He photographed thousands over his lifetime and was known as 'Snowflake' Bentley.

Which Japanese physicist created the diagram relating snow crystal shape to temperature and humidity?

He also discovered that whether the air is above or below saturation changes the shape.

Whose 1611 paper 'On the six-cornered snowflake' first stated a conjecture on stacking spheres?

The Kepler conjecture was finally proved by Thomas Hales, with a formal proof completed in 2014.

The world's largest snowflake, 38 cm across per Guinness, fell in 1887 in which US state?

It was reported at Fort Keogh, near present-day Miles City; nobody photographed it.

The single-season snowfall record of 1,140 inches was set in 1998-99 at a ski area on which mountain?

That is nearly 29 metres of snow in one winter.

Which Japanese city, at the northern tip of Honshu, is often ranked the snowiest city in the world?

Sapporo and Toyama, also in Japan, round out the top three among large cities.

For how long must 35 mph winds and quarter-mile visibility persist for a US blizzard to be declared?

Blizzard is a measure of wind and visibility, not how much snow falls.

Roughly what percentage of Earth's surface is covered by seasonal snow?

Almost all of it is in the Northern Hemisphere, where most of the land is.

The Great Blizzard of 1888 helped push which city to build America's first underground subway?

Boston's opened in 1897; New York's first underground line followed in 1904.

How much snow fell in parts of the Northeast during the great blizzard of March 1888?

Drifts were reported covering three-storey houses.

Which type of avalanche accounts for around 90% of avalanche deaths?

They typically start on slopes of 30 to 45 degrees when a cohesive layer breaks away from a weak layer beneath.

Roughly how many soldiers on both sides died in Alpine avalanches in December 1916?

Some avalanches were triggered deliberately by artillery fire on the Italian front.

The deadliest avalanche in US history killed 96 people in 1910 in the town of Wellington in which state?

It swept two trains stranded at a railway depot in the Cascades into a ravine.

In which year did Aïn Séfra, 'the Gateway to the Sahara', first see recorded snow?

It has since snowed there again in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022, with a metre-deep blizzard in January 2017.

The earliest known depiction of a snowman appears in the margin of a Book of Hours dated to which year?

The 1380 manuscript is held in The Hague.

Which Renaissance artist was commissioned by Piero de' Medici to build a snowman in 1494?

He was 19 and living in the Medici household at the time.

The world's tallest snow figure, a 122-foot snowwoman named Olympia, was built in 2008 in Bethel, in which state?

Her arms were spruce trees and her eyelashes were skis.

A North American snowman has three snowballs. How many are typical in the United Kingdom?

One ball for the body, one for the head; Frosty's 1950 song helped popularise snowmen everywhere.

The Austrian who patented the snow globe, Erwin Perzy, was originally trying to build what?

Reflective particles in a water-filled flask reminded him of snowfall, and his family still makes globes in Vienna.

Which 1941 film opens with its dying protagonist dropping a snow globe as he whispers 'Rosebud'?

The shattered globe sets up the fragmented, flashback structure of the whole film.

Why is snow a good building material for an igloo?

Outside it may be −45 °C while inside ranges from −7 to 16 °C; wind-packed snow makes the best blocks.

In the Inuit languages, the word iglu can refer to what?

English narrowed the meaning to snow houses, which are only one kind of iglu.

On which US state's capitol grounds was the record for most simultaneous snow angels (8,962) set in 2007?

It beat the previous record of 3,784 set at Michigan Technological University.

The word 'ski' comes from an Old Norse word meaning what?

Skiing has a history of almost five millennia, and may go back further still in the Altai Mountains.

The first Winter Olympic Games were held in 1924 in which French town?

Norway leads the all-time Winter Olympic medal table, ahead of the United States and Germany.

Snowboarding became an official Olympic sport at which Winter Games?

Its ancestor, the Snurfer, was invented in 1965 by Sherm Poppen, who fastened two skis together as a toy for his daughters.

The Snurfer, the snowboard's forerunner, was invented in 1965 in Muskegon, in which state?

Jake Burton Carpenter later added bindings and founded Burton Snowboards in Vermont.

Which Central and South Asian big cat cannot roar and wraps its thick tail around its face like a blanket to sleep?

It is listed as Vulnerable, with fewer than 10,000 mature individuals thought to remain.

The snowy owl's breeding success is closely tied to the population of which small Arctic rodent?

Unlike most owls it often hunts by day, especially in the Arctic summer when there is no night.

Which sex of snowy owl tends to be purer white, with fewer dark flecks?

Females carry more brown barring, which camouflages them on the nest.

The claim that 'Eskimos have dozens of words for snow' traces to a 1911 observation by which anthropologist?

Boas gave just four examples, including aput for snow on the ground and qana for falling snow; the numbers grew in the retelling.

Disney's Frozen (2013) was loosely inspired by which Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale?

'Let It Go' won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and the film was the highest-grossing animated film until 2019.

Which Irving Berlin song, first sung by Bing Crosby in 1942, is the best-selling physical single of all time?

It was written for the film Holiday Inn and won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

The words flurry, shower, storm and blizzard describe snow events in what kind of order?

A flurry may leave no accumulation at all, while a blizzard is defined by wind and visibility.

Snow density on the ground ranges from about 0.1 up to roughly what, in grams per cubic centimetre?

Fresh powder is mostly air; old, compacted snow approaches the density of ice, which is 0.92.

Snow's transformation between falling and melting or becoming glacial ice is called snow what?

Inside a snowpack all three phases of water can coexist, with liquid water partly filling the pores.

Which region was awarded the 2030 Winter Olympics?

Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo hosted the 2026 Games; Salt Lake City was awarded 2034.

Avalanches most commonly start on slopes of what steepness?

Gentler slopes rarely release and steeper ones shed snow before it can build up.

Sukayu Onsen, which holds the world record for highest average annual snowfall, is in which country?

It averaged 1,764 cm, nearly 58 feet, over the period 1981 to 2010.

Which Washington peak held the single-season snowfall record from 1971-72 until it was beaten in 1998-99?

It recorded 2,850 cm that winter, only 46 cm short of the mark that eventually surpassed it.

Magono and Lee's classification of freshly formed snow crystals recognises how many distinct shapes?

They documented each with micrographs, building on Nakaya's temperature-and-moisture diagram.

Névé, granular snow that survives into summer, has a minimum density of about what fraction of water?

At 500 kg per cubic metre it has been partially melted, refrozen and compacted.

What is the name for snow that has persisted for several years, denser than névé but not yet glacial ice?

It resembles caked sugar, resists shovelling and lies under the snow at the head of a glacier.

Glaciers with their permanent snowpacks cover roughly what share of Earth's surface?

Seasonal snow covers a similar area, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, reaching nearly half its land each January.

Regions that regularly receive lake-effect snow, such as areas east of the Great Lakes, are called what?

The west coasts of northern Japan and the Kamchatka Peninsula are also on the list.

What is the armchair-shaped mountain hollow where snow collects and a glacier forms called?

Also known as a corrie or cwm, it fills with compacted névé until glacial ice overflows its lip.