Winter Trivia
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Winter is more than cold weather, and this quiz covers the whole season in 195 free questions with answers: why the Earth has seasons at all, what makes a snowflake six-sided, the coldest temperature ever recorded, the animals that freeze solid or sleep through it, and the winter solstice festivals people have kept for thousands of years, from Stonehenge and Yaldā to Hanukkah and Chinese New Year. There is also the fun side: Groundhog Day, the tallest snowman ever built, curling stones and bobsleighs, the Iditarod, Frozen, Narnia, The Shining, Fargo and the heatwave that produced 'Let It Snow'. Roughly a third of the questions are easy enough for kids and classrooms, and the rest climb to winter trivia for adults, the sort of records and history that settle a pub-quiz round. Every answer has been checked against a documented source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation after you answer.
30 of 195 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, what season is it in the Southern Hemisphere?
Summer
Australians and South Africans eat Christmas dinner in midsummer, and their meteorological winter runs June to August.
Q 02Meteorologists in the Northern Hemisphere count winter as which three months?
December, January and February
Meteorological winter is December, January and February, the three coldest months on average; astronomical winter starts later, at the December solstice, and runs to the March equinox.
Q 03What causes the seasons, including winter?
The tilt of Earth's axis
The axis leans 23.44 degrees from the plane of the orbit, so each hemisphere takes turns pointing away from the Sun.
Q 04Earth is actually closest to the Sun (perihelion) during which month?
January
Perihelion falls in early January, around 3 January, about two weeks after the December solstice, which is why Earth-Sun distance is not what makes northern winters cold.
Q 05The winter solstice, the Northern Hemisphere's shortest day, when the Sun traces its lowest arc, falls on which dates?
21 or 22 December
The winter solstice falls on 21 or 22 December, when the noon Sun is lowest in the Northern Hemisphere sky; the exact date shifts with the leap-year cycle.
Q 06Newgrange in Ireland and Stonehenge in England are both aligned to the sunrise or sunset of which day?
The winter solstice
Newgrange points to the solstice sunrise and Stonehenge to the solstice sunset, both built thousands of years before written calendars.
Q 07Snow crystals grow with six-fold symmetry because of what?
The hexagonal structure of ice
Every flake starts on a speck of dust and grows differently on its way down, which is why finding two identical ones is so unlikely.
Q 08How wide does Guinness list the largest snowflakes ever reported, at Fort Keogh, Montana, in 1887?
38 cm (15 in)
Guinness lists them at 38 cm (15 in) wide and 20 cm (8 in) thick, reported by rancher Matt Coleman at Fort Keogh on 28 January 1887; the claim rests on his word alone.
Q 09Who, from 1885, photographed thousands of snowflakes through a microscope, showing their variety?
Wilson Bentley
The Vermont farmer, nicknamed Snowflake Bentley, worked in an unheated shed so his subjects would not melt.
Q 10Earth's lowest directly recorded air temperature, -89.2 °C, was measured in 1983 where?
Vostok Station, Antarctica
Vostok Station, Antarctica, recorded -89.2 °C on 21 July 1983, the lowest directly measured air temperature; satellite-derived surface readings near -98 °C on the East Antarctic plateau do not count as official records.
Q 11At what temperature do the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales read the same number?
-40
-40 is the crossover: setting F equal to C in F = 1.8C + 32 gives C = -40, the one reading where a Canadian and an American agree without converting.
Q 12Paul Siple and Charles Passel devised the first wind chill formulas while stationed where?
Antarctica
Siple and Passel worked at Little America in Antarctica in 1940, timing how fast water froze in a plastic cylinder exposed to the wind; the revised index used by Canada and the US dates from 2001.
Q 13Inside the Arctic and Antarctic circles, what is the period when the Sun stays below the horizon over 24 hours called?
Polar night
Polar night is the stretch without a sunrise; at the poles themselves it lasts about half a year, while in Tromsø, Norway, it runs from late November to mid-January.
Q 21Which is the only penguin that breeds during the Antarctic winter, with males incubating an egg on their feet?
Emperor penguin
Emperor penguins are the only penguins that breed in the Antarctic winter; males balance the single egg on their feet for more than two months, huddling in their hundreds against the wind.
Q 22Reindeer are unique among deer because of what?
Females may grow antlers
Reindeer are the only deer in which females may grow antlers; in North America the species is called caribou, and its herds make some of the longest land migrations of any mammal.
Q 23St Bernard dogs were originally bred for what job in the Alps?
Rescue work
Q 14The 'borealis' in aurora borealis comes from the name of the ancient Greek god of what?
The north wind
Boreas was the Greek god of the north wind, so aurora borealis means 'northern dawn'; Aurora was the Roman goddess of dawn, and the southern lights are the aurora australis.
Q 15Roughly what fraction of an iceberg's volume floats above the water?
About one-tenth
About one-tenth: ice is roughly 0.92 times as dense as seawater, so about 90 percent of an iceberg sits below the surface, which is where 'tip of the iceberg' comes from.
Q 16Pink 'watermelon snow' seen on mountains and glaciers is caused by what?
An alga with a red pigment
Chlamydomonas nivalis is a green alga that makes a red carotenoid; Aristotle wrote about the phenomenon more than 2,000 years ago.
Q 17Which is the only bird species known to hibernate?
The common poorwill
The common poorwill, a nightjar of western North America, can stay torpid for weeks in winter with its body temperature near 5 °C; its Hopi name means 'the sleeping one'.
Q 18Which amphibian survives winter frozen solid and is North America's only one found north of the Arctic Circle?
The wood frog
The wood frog floods its blood with glucose as an antifreeze, so up to two-thirds of its body water can freeze solid; its heart and breathing stop until the spring thaw.
Q 19Female bears do what during their winter dormancy?
Give birth to their cubs
Cubs are born blind, nearly hairless and tiny, and nurse in the den until spring.
Q 20The snowshoe hare's coat changes from brown in the warm months to what in winter?
White
It turns white, hiding it against snow; the moult is triggered by shortening days, and its oversized hind feet act like snowshoes, which is where the name comes from.
Rescue work was the job: the most famous St Bernard, Barry, is credited with saving at least 40 lives, while the brandy barrel round the neck is a myth traced to an 1820 painting.
Q 24In Greek myth, Demeter lets the earth go barren each winter because her daughter must spend that time where?
In the underworld with Hades
Persephone must spend part of each year in the underworld with Hades: she ate pomegranate seeds there, which bound her to return below for a third of every year.
Q 25In Russia, gifts at New Year are brought by Ded Moroz, whose name translates as what?
Grandfather Frost
Ded means grandfather and moroz means frost, so he is Grandfather Frost; he travels with his granddaughter Snegurochka and officially lives in Veliky Ustyug.
Q 26According to tradition, what happens if the groundhog sees its shadow on February 2?
Six more weeks of winter
A shadow means six more weeks of winter; Punxsutawney Phil has been consulted at Gobbler's Knob since 1887, though he was not given the name Phil until 1961.
Q 27Hanukkah lasts for how many nights?
Eight
Hanukkah lasts eight nights, beginning on the 25th of Kislev; the hanukkiah holds nine lights, one for each of the eight nights plus the shamash that lights the others.
Q 28Chinese New Year always begins on a new moon that falls between which two dates?
21 January and 20 February
It falls between 21 January and 20 February, usually the second new moon after the December solstice; celebrations run 15 days to the Lantern Festival, and each year takes one of 12 zodiac animals.
Q 29Which snowman, 122 feet tall and built in Bethel, Maine, in 2008, holds the record for the tallest ever?
Olympia
She was named after Maine senator Olympia Snowe and had skis for eyelashes and truck tyres for buttons.
Q 30Which Renaissance artist was commissioned by Piero de' Medici to make a snowman in 1494?
Michelangelo
Michelangelo, then a teenager, built it in the Medici courtyard after a heavy January 1494 snowfall, as Vasari records; no drawing of it survives.