The last update to this blog made sport of weather forecasters because they had forecasted snow of historic proportions. I’ve often heard people refer to a blizzard and I realized I’m not sure what constitutes a blizzard — except when I’m at Dairy Queen, of course. So I figured it was time for some extensive research. I discovered that snow is an extremely complex type of precipitation — snowflakes are agglomerates of a lot of frozen ice crystals and most snowflakes are less than a half an inch across. The water content of snowflakes is extremely variable with the “average” snowflake being made up of 180 billion molecules of water. The number of molecules in each flake is dependent on temperature, crystal structure, wind speed and lots of other things.
Before I get too carried away with my new-found knowledge, let’s get the blizzard thing out of the way. A blizzard occurs when visibility is less than a quarter of a mile, the winds must be at least 35 miles an hour and the storm must last at least 3 hours. If any of these conditions are not met, it is only a snowstorm.
I think I learned in school that all snowflakes have six sides. I didn’t check yesterday, but in the past all that I’ve checked did indeed have six sides. If you happen to find a snowflake that has more or less than six sides, I’m not sure what it means….
Snowflakes aren’t really white — in places where the soil is red clay, snowflakes often look pink because red dust from the soil is blown into the air and absorbed by the clouds and when factories burned a lot of coal, the coal dust entered the air and the snow was often gray. Snow in various locations seem to have colors that range from yellow and orange to green and even purple, but the fact is that snow is actually colorless. Sometimes it picks up dirt or particles in the atmosphere, but the complex structure of snow crystals have countless tiny surfaces from which visible light is reflected. Usually what little sunlight is absorbed by snow is absorbed uniformly over the visible wavelengths and gives the snow its white appearance.
Chionophobia is the fear of snow – there is no known cure. About 12% of the Earth’s land surface is permanently covered with snow and ice. People buy more cakes, cookies and candy than any other food when a blizzard is forecasted. The average snowflake falls at a speed of 3.1 miles per hour. Fresh snow is an excellent insulator. Ten inches of fresh snow with a density of 0.07 inches, seven percent water, is approximately equal to a six-inch layer of fiberglass insulation — with an insulation value of R-18.
So as I ponder all this information, I’ve come to the conclusion that snowflakes are a lot like people — no two are alike. Everyone is different and that makes us who we are. But people don’t have six sides.
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