Talk:Snow: Difference between revisions

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Whoever wrote this..."Snow fall remains on the ground until it melts." is really going places in life. Congratulations you're an idiot.

That comment was silly, but let's not call other users idiots. That's against wikipedia's no personal attacks policy. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 14:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I placed an explanation about yellow snow and what it is on the page, noticing that it was missing from the article. Some bastard called it vandalism and removed it! I'm offended!! If you agree that there should be a reference to yellow snow, find my version (totally academic and unoffensive) in the history and fix it.Aaronchall 04:48, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If nothing else, it should be a reference to the Frank Zappa song. Yellow snow is real! - Denimadept 23:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

the page seems kind of cluttered with photos. I propose we keep that neat snowflake template thing, but either remove a lot of the subpar and unnecessary photos or move them into the gallery at the bottom of the page, they're cluttering the page, and they aren't very good in quality. ARBlackwood 22:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.

in this tiCorbmobile

Much of the earths fresh water is held by gigantic glaciers 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

[1] Why was this paragraph removed? –radiojon 01:31, 2004 Jul 16 (UTC)

The highest seasonally cumulative precipitation of snow was measured on Mount Baker, U.S.A during 1998-1999 season when they received 28 meters or 1,140 inches; this surpassed the previous record holder, Mount Rainier, U.S.A which during 1971-1972 season received a thousand inches (25 m) of snow; and the highest daily precipitation was recorded in Silver Lake, Colorado, U.S.A in 1921 (1.93 metres , 76 inches).

A user complained that it was US-centric. I have clarified that they are world records and returned it. Rmhermen 14:14, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

Now it says:

The highest seasonal total snowfall measured in the United States was at Mount Baker Ski Area, outside of the town Bellingham, Washington during the 1998–1999 season. Mount Baker received 1,140 inches (29 m) of snow,[10] thus surpassing the previous record holder, Mount Rainier, Washington, which during the 1971–1972 season received 1,122 in. (28.5 m) of snow.

This sounds like it's a US-record, but in fact it's a world record. Why was it changed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.153.190.130 (talk) 16:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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?

Question. I came here wondering, is there snow on other planets? I guess it wouldn't be water/ice snow, right? It would still be snow right, if it's known to exist. Just wondering, but if it's not in the article already (I might have missed it), it might be a good addition. --Sketchee 14:47, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

I think snow occurs in the polar regions of Mars, maybe just ice?. Seems that one pole has water snow and the other has carbon dioxide snow, but this needs checking (just my snowy memory :-). Also, perhaps methane snow on Titan - need to check Huygens results. Should be checked out and added to the article. Maybe sometime ... -Vsmith

Anyone care to explain why it is famous for it's snow? 70.111.224.85 15:01, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea either. Maybe someone should change the caption...--70.82.44.129 03:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Utah's snow tends to be dry powder, which is good for skiing.

Can anyone please explain in the article what “base depth” means? When you read ski resort reports, they always show base depth. It cannot be the depth of the snow at the groomed slops – sometimes they say BD is 36”, which is 3 feet, and you can see grass and stones under the snow. Sometimes ski report says BD is 175”, which is 14.5 feet – it’s a good glacier already. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.143.204.110 (talk) 19:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it somewhat contradictory to state that something is a "brief ... long storm"?

Would "A brief and (very) intense storm of heavy snow." describe a "snow squal" more accurately?

Why is there no mentioning of the relation to "lake effect snow" as indicated by the link?

Rjacob 10:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone pop in an explanation for why it is thought that no two snowlfakes could be the same? (mathematically or otherwise?) -Shadowfax0 21:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• The definition of "sameness" is kind of vague. People also say lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but tall skyscrapers get struck all the time. So, it's probably just a saying. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-14 21:57

Is there any reason that the snow article does not link to the snowflake article? MCalamari 17:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Beacause the snowflake stub actually has less information about a snowflake than the snow article. Snowflake would be better as a redirect to snow.--Shantavira 13:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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.

I'm pretty sure 20 inches of water is not the equivelant of 20 inches snow.

The rule of thumb is that 1 cm of snow is equal to 1 mm of rain.

While a ratio of 10 to 1 is what is often used weather predictors in the US the typical ratios in the US can vary from 10 to 1 up to 25 to 1. Snow ratios can be as low as 3 to 1 and as high as to 100 to l. Weather forcasters in the US are looking for better methods of forcasting than the current one of using the arbitrary ratio of 10 to 1. This is why forcast are so often wildly wrong for snow amounts. See the national weather services page for more details. Could someone else add some of this information to the main article? 131.118.245.253 14:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

I removed the paragraph that said that Lake Tahoe was the snowiest place in the country. It's not. And "dozens" of feet do not accumulate there on a regular basis. In fact, I believe that the record single-storm snowfall is barely even two dozen feet, which can hardly be classified as "dozens" anyway. Until someone cites their source for this, then I am removing it. bob rulz 02:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

Someone might want to take a gander at this: South Korea gets rare yellow snowfall The bellman 05:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

Kudos for adding them whosoever did.

I have restored this link since though it is plainly promotional there seems to be enough material of relevance to make the link justified. TerriersFan 20:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Under Geometry it is stated that "A snowflake always has six symmetric arms." This assertion is simply not true! According to Kenneth Libbrecht, "The rather unattractive irregular crystals are by far the most common variety." http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/myths/myths.htm#perfection Someone really need to take a look at his site and get FACTS off of it because I still see a decent number of falsities on this page. (forgive me Im new at this and dont want to edit anything) - unsigned comment by User:138.162.0.45

Seems still no one has attended to this. The pictures don't help either. Perhaps we should put up some more random pictures, showing how the majority of snow flakes really show no symatry at all. There is always a hexagonal alignmnet--155.144.251.120 02:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is requested that a photograph of man-made snow be included in this article to improve its quality. The external tool WordPress Openverse may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

I'm requesting that someone find or make a free picture of man-made snow at a magnification comparable to that needed to see an up close image of a natural snowflake. I uploaded a non-free picture from http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/class/class.htm, but it was deleted. In any case, a free picture would be nice. Fresheneesz 19:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article mentions that "the only snow actually to appear on the Equator is at 30 ft altitude of the southern slope of Volcán Cayambe in Ecuador". However the wikipedia entry on Cayambe states "At 4,690 m on its south slope is the highest point in the world crossed by the Equator and the only point on the Equator with snow cover". Since 4,690 m is about 15390 ft, Cayambe would have to itself lie severely below sea-level for both these entries to be correct! I'm fairly certain it's the entry on this page (Snow) that is incorrect --- probably a typo --- but perhaps someone well-informed on this (or ideally the person responsible for the initial entry) could look it over? 137.222.184.130 13:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.7.32.246 (talk) 01:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I was wondering about this, too...

The page is semi protected so only users who have an account over 4 days old can edit it. You can set up an account for free. It is protected to prevent vandalism.. --h2g2bob 18:48, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What the hell? When did "Stalinists" become the new insult ????? You capitalistic Dubyas!!!

GEOMETRY SECTION:

"The most common snowflakes are visually irregular"

Should be "visibly irregular" (unless they've been drinking too much eggnog).

It's been corrected by someone (don't know who) --h2g2bob 18:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The world record was recorded at Mt. Baker Ski Area, not Mt. Baker itself which is actually situated nine miles away. While this does not meet the requirements set by the NWS, a glaciologist from Nichols College (MA) who studies the North Cascades claims that snowpack measurements on Mt. Baker (at 8000 feet) suggested snowfall "was no less than 140 feet or 1680 inches during the winter of 1998/99." [2] --Jobe9 16:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The third paragraph in the snowflake section is about artificial snow and reads:

Snow machines shoot a mixture of water and compressed air out of nozzles. The water comes out as fine droplets, and the air cools as it decompresses, causing the droplets to freeze. A fan blows the ice particles onto the slopes. Artificial snow is made of frozen water droplets, with none of the elaborate structure found in real snow crystals.

This seems to be copied straight from the page at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/class/class.htm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.223.155.30 (talk • contribs).

You’re right. Thanks for noticing it, and feel free to remove this sort of thing where you find it. —xyzzy_n 16:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article says that "no two snowflakes will look exactly alike" (top of the snowflake section) as well as saying that "There is a widely-held belief that no two snowflakes are alike, but that claim has not been proven", second from last paragraph in that section. Clarify? 88.110.143.59 08:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's one of those issues that never can be settled. Very tiny ice crystals are usually hexagonal prisms. They have two basal planes (the hexagons, "top" and "bottom"), and 6 "vertical" faces (rectangles). The angles between the faces are 120 degrees. The shape and size of such a hexagonal prism can be chracterized by five parameters: (i) the height, (ii) the largest distance between two parallel faces, (iii) the shortest distance between two parallel planes, (iv) the width of the widest of the remaining two faces, and (v) the width of the last face. The basal planes are usually close to being regular, reducing the parameters (ii)-(v) to only one independent parameter. Give or take a few million water molecules, two ice crystals that are hexagonal prisms can quite easily be very alike. However, as ice crystals grow in the atmosphere, the shape becomes a lot more varying due to the growth and branching of dendrites at the corners. The chance that two macroscopic snowflakes in the history of the world have had identical arrangements of all the quadrllions of water molecules is vanishing. Have two humans who are not identical twins ever had identical genes? Probably not, but proving it is impossible.--Niels Ø (noe) 16:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given this discussion, I thought this incorrectly sourced bit belonged here where someone with more knowledge than I can evaluate it:

- There is every reason to assume that the number of attributes is infinite and that the possibility of two snowflakes being identical is nil. Claims to the contrary invariably lack sufficient microscopic and/or chemical analysis or assume a finite number of attributes. Even though similarities are common in nature, true identities do not exist The Scientific Worldview.

- Cheers, ParvatiBai 17:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to leave it, but I think your posting that URL is inappropriate (I removed it from the main article). The way, the truth, and the light 23:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"However, the number of possible snowflakes per the atomic structure would be based on the number of molecules, and the former number would be very, very large." - This makes no sense to me. I believe it needs to be clarified.

—

The citation for Nancy Knight is:

Knight, N. (1988) "No two alike?" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 69(5):496

but I can't verify it as the AMS web archive is incomplete. If anyone has access to a physical copy (anyone near the US Library of Congress?),it would be appreciated if you could confirm the citation. Drpixie (talk) 02:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The 'Occurrence' heading which I renamed 'Occurrence of glaciation' deals solely with glaciation and probably should be merged into the Glacier. (Glaciation deals with ice ages currently.)

Most of the information in it is already found in Glacier.

Done. The way, the truth, and the light 11:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about the fact that snowflakes are minerals? 134.250.72.179 23:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone has just created a 2-sentence article there. I believe that to be too limited a topic to have its own article and it should be merged here. The way, the truth, and the light 12:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. The way, the truth, and the light 13:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this some sort of bad joke? Natural phenomena are not primarily to be described by in/convenience for the human population of this planet. Therefore deleting. —AldeBaer 13:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A snowflake and snow are different concepts and need different pages. Rain is water, but in many ways they are not the same thing. For example, symmetry isn't a word that it generally makes sense to apply to snow. Deep isn't a workd which applies to a snowflake. The fact that wikipedia is somewhat short on information on snowflakes as distinct from snow en masse is not a good argument for merging the two articles Quirkie 23:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't there be a discussion to why snow is not hail? See introductory paragraph. Wouldn't hail also fit? Congolese 00:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Snowflake section is full of things that just don't make any sense.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Donkeypoodle (talk • contribs) 00:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Flurry is linked to an O/S 99.232.203.75 (talk) 00:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest to add featured picture Image:LT-SEM snow crystal magnification series-3 frame.jpg to the article. Visor (talk) 19:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is something preventing you from doing this? - Denimadept (talk) 20:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I did it! ;) Visor (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That definitely fits there. - Denimadept (talk) 21:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Snowflakes need bacteria for nucleation. Each snowflake forms around bacteria. Read all about it: [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.213.12.169 (talk) 06:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just added this to the article, though I didn't see your post here before I did it. It's not actually all of them, just 85%. Esn (talk) 08:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that this information was removed by someone in the intervening months. Does anyone know why it was removed? Esn (talk) 02:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does the image present individual ice crystals or aggregates of them? I think the former but am not sure. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 07:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, someone put "i love snow" at the end of the beginning section. I can't find it to delete it when I go to edit the page though.

Also, as for the whole "no two snowflakes are identical thing", it has been proven that identical snowflakes do exist. In addition to the astronomically small chance that, of all the snowflakes that have ever fallen, considering many fall under the same or similar conditions, no two are the same, they actually found two identical flakes in the same storm. I think it was in the midwestern US in the 80's or something. Anyway, yeah, not true, identical snowflakes exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.129.75 (talk) 17:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

....... ...... ..... .... ... .. . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.97.199.117 (talk) 08:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the animation, which doesn't show any snow accumulation in the southern hemisphere and is obviously incorrect. These concerns have gone unanswered at the talk page for the picture for more than a year. -- Mikeblas (talk) 03:10, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The claim that snowmen are adorned with carrot noses, coal eyes and top hats is uncited, and frankly strains credultity. While I have seen artistic representation of snowmen thus attired, can anyone seriously claim that there is a ubiquity of coal and top hats in the northern hemisphere with which to accessorize snow creations? Having recently priced top hats, I know them to be generally in excess of $100 - I can imagine a toque or a baseball cap, or perhaps even a beat up fedora....but a top hat? Unless there is some citation for the claim (again, in actual creations, not artistic representations), then I will feel compelled to edit this section. fishhead64 (talk) 00:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please make sure your children know that cars can have a very difficult time stopping in snow storms, especially on very fresh, fast-falling snow. Kids in my neighborhood run out in front of cars in snowball fights, just assuming the cars will stop dead.

Also, make sure they know that cars that are hit with snowballs have an... EXTRA... hard time stopping.Kingoomieiii (talk) 16:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised to see that this amazing picture wasn't in this article. Perhaps someone should find a place for it. It's a snowflake zoomed in up to 36,000X.  :-) --Steve (talk) 01:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A mention of winter carnivals as a whole would be appropriate for the "Recreation" section, but to specifically mention the winter carnival of Michigan Technological University seems wrong, since there are many other winter carnivals that are older, better known, or both--I'm thinking of the one at Dartmouth College and the ones in Quebec City and in St. Paul, for instance. (I don't know about those outside North America, but I imagine there are well-established and famous winter carnivals in Europe and Asia as well. As it's written now, it would appear that the MTU winter carnival is the only one in the world. 65.213.77.129 (talk) 15:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. That would be a useful addition. 99.224.137.2 (talk) 14:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]