Interesting facts about snowflakes. Interesting facts about winter and snow Article about snow
- As you know, snow does not fall all over the globe, because nature has taken care of the temperature conditions of some countries. That is why more than half of the people that inhabit our planet have not seen snow live in their lives. Unless from a photograph, or visited snowy countries.
- Of all the snow that has fallen on the entire globe, there is not a single snowflake that repeats in structure!
- Snowflakes are 95% air. That is why they fall very slowly, at a speed of 0.9 km / h.
- Why is snow white? Because snow has air in its structure. In this case, all kinds of light rays are simply reflected from the border of ice crystals with air and scattered. But there have been times in history when snow of a different color fell. For example, in Switzerland in 1969, black snow fell, just in time for Christmas, and in 1955, green snow fell on California. The saddest thing in this story is that the residents who tasted this snow died in the near future, and those who took green snow in their hands got severe itching and a rash on their hands.
But the snow is not so snow-white everywhere. For example, in Antarctica and high mountains, snow of pink, purple, red and yellowish-brown color is found. This is facilitated by creatures that live in the snow and are called snow chlamydomonas. - 1 cm of snow cover, which covers our Earth during the winter, gives a full-fledged 25-35 cubic meters of water per 1 hectare. Perhaps people will soon come up with some devices for collecting snow and using it in the future. Somewhere in industry, or as industrial water for irrigation of fields, flushing in public toilets, etc. etc. Or maybe learn to separate the water and chemicals in the snow.
- When a snowflake falls into the water, it emits a high-frequency sound that is not picked up by humans but, according to scientists, is very disliked by the fish population of the river.
- Snow, under normal conditions, melts at 0 degrees Celsius. However, a significant amount of snow can evaporate at sub-zero temperatures, bypassing the transformation into a liquid phase. This process occurs when the sun's rays hit the snow.
- In winter, snow reflects up to 90% of the sun's rays from the Earth's surface, directing them back into space. Thus, preventing the Earth from warming up.
- Approximately at temperatures below -2-5 degrees Celsius, a creak is heard when walking in the snow. And the colder the weather, the stronger this creak is heard. And there are two reasons for this: firstly, the sound appears when the snow crystals break, and secondly, when the crystals slide against each other under the pressure that you create.
- The largest snowflake in the entire world has been witnessed in history. During a snowfall in 1987 on January 28 in Fort Coy (Montana, USA), the snowflake found had a diameter of 38 cm. And this despite the fact that ordinary snowflakes have an average diameter of 5 mm.
In fact, it is colorless, and white is just an optical illusion. Snowflakes are ice crystals of a complex shape with many faces in which light is refracted and re-reflected many times. If an object reflects the entire spectrum of light falling on it, we perceive it as white. And if you make a dent in a snowdrift on a sunny day, the snow seems green-yellow. On a cloudy day, it looks blue, and if there is a bright red sunset in the sky, it looks pink.
2. Identical snowflakes exist
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The Earth is in third place in terms of distance from the Sun and in fifth place among all the planets in the solar system in terms of size.
Age– 4.54 billion years
Medium radius - 6,378.2 km
Middle circle - 40,030.2 km
Square– 510,072 million km² (29.1% land and 70.9% water)
Number of continents– 6: Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica
Number of oceans– 4: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic
Population– 7.3 billion people (50.4% men and 49.6% women)
Most populous states: Monaco (18,678 people/km2), Singapore (7607 people/km2) and Vatican City (1914 people/km2)
Number of countries: total 252, independent 195
Number of languages in the world– about 6,000
Number of official languages- 95; most common: English (56 countries), French (29 countries) and Arabic (24 countries)
Number of nationalities– about 2,000
Climatic zones: equatorial, tropical, temperate and arctic (basic) + subequatorial, subtropical and subarctic (transitional)
There is a myth that two identical snowflakes do not exist. But physicist Kenneth G. Libbrecht of the California Institute of Technology proved otherwise. He conducted an experiment and found that "identical twins" of snowflakes are formed under conditions of the same temperature and humidity. In nature, their difference is due to movement: during the fall to the ground, the symmetry and shape of their rays change.
3. Snowflakes can be gigantic
The average snowflake has a diameter of 5 mm and weighs about 0.004 g. However, under favorable conditions, snow crystals can adhere to each other in relatively stable structures and form snow flakes. The largest snowflake was 38 cm in diameter. It was formed in Fort Keo, Montana, in 1887.
4. Japan has a snowflake museum
It was discovered on the island of Hokkaido by the scientist Nakaya Ukichiro. The halls of the museum, unique in its kind, were equipped in snow caves. In addition to exhibition halls where you can view macro shots of snowflakes and learn interesting facts about snow, the museum has a concert hall that regularly hosts performances by famous artists.
5. There are 180 words for snow
It used to be that the words for snow and ice were the most in the language of the Eskimos. But now linguists have given the palm to the Saami living in the north of Scandinavia: their language has at least 180 words for these concepts.
It's summer right now! And there seemed to be no question of snow, but still I want to tell you interesting facts about this climatic phenomenon.
What is snow?
Snow is nothing but frozen water. However, in that case, why doesn't it look like ice? The fact is that snowflakes are actually made of small ice crystals, and because the light reflects off their many facets, the snowflakes appear white instead of transparent. Snow is formed when water vapor in the atmosphere freezes. At first, tiny crystals appear, clean and transparent. Following the air currents, they move in the air in all directions. Gradually, these crystals “stick” to each other until there are a hundred or even more of them. When the size of the frozen ice floes is large enough, they begin to slowly sink to the ground. These accumulations of ice floes are what we call snowflakes.
1. As you know, snow does not fall all over the globe, because nature has taken care of the temperature conditions of some countries. That is why more than half of the people that inhabit our planet have not seen snow live in their lives. Unless from a photograph, or visited snowy countries.
2. Of all the snow that has fallen on the entire globe, there will not be a single snowflake that repeats in structure!
3. Snowflakes are 95% air. That is why they fall very slowly, at a speed of 0.9 km / h.
4. Why is snow white? Because snow has air in its structure. In this case, all kinds of light rays are simply reflected from the border of ice crystals with air and scattered.
But in history there have been cases when snow of a different color fell. For example, in Switzerland in 1969, black snow fell, just in time for Christmas, and in 1955, green snow fell on California. The saddest thing in this story is that the residents who tasted this snow died in the near future, and those who took green snow in their hands got severe itching and a rash on their hands. This is probably why we are forbidden to eat yellow snow.
But the snow is not so snow-white everywhere. For example, in Antarctica and high mountains, snow of pink, purple, red and yellowish-brown color is found. This is facilitated by creatures that live in the snow and are called snow chlamydomonas.
5. 1 cm of snow cover, which covers our Earth during the winter, gives a full-fledged 25-35 cubic meters of water per 1 hectare. Perhaps people will soon come up with some devices for collecting snow and using it in the future. Somewhere in the industry, or as industrial water for field irrigation, flushing in public toilets, etc. Etc. Or maybe they will learn to separate the water and chemicals in the snow.
6. When a snowflake falls into the water, it emits a high-frequency sound that is not picked up by humans, but according to scientists, the fish population of the river really does not like it.
7. Snow, under normal conditions, melts at 0 degrees Celsius. However, a significant amount of snow can evaporate at sub-zero temperatures, bypassing the transformation into a liquid phase. This process occurs when the sun's rays hit the snow.
8. In winter, snow reflects up to 90% of the sun's rays from the Earth's surface, directing them back into space. Thus preventing the Earth from warming up.
9. Approximately at temperatures below -2-5 degrees Celsius, a creak is heard when walking in the snow. And the colder the temperature, the stronger this creak is heard. And there are two reasons for this: firstly, the sound appears when the snow crystals break, and secondly, when the crystals slide against each other under the pressure that you create.
10. The largest snowflake in the entire world has been witnessed in history. During a snowfall in 1987 on January 28 in Fort Coy (Montana, USA), the snowflake found had a diameter of 38 cm. And this despite the fact that ordinary snowflakes have an average diameter of 5 mm.
Snow forms when microscopic water droplets in clouds are attracted to dust particles and freeze. The ice crystals that appear in this case, which at first do not exceed 0.1 mm in diameter, fall down and grow as a result of condensation of moisture from the air on them. In this case, six-pointed crystalline forms with angles of 60° and 120° are formed.
The astronomer Johannes Kepler first scientifically substantiated the shape of snowflakes in 1611. He published a scientific treatise "On Hexagonal Snowflakes", in which he subjected the wonders of nature to consideration from the side of rigid geometry.
There is such a variety of snowflakes that it is generally believed that no two snowflakes are the same.
A snowflake weighs 1-3 milligrams.
The white color comes from the air contained in the snowflake. Light of various frequencies is reflected on the boundary surfaces between the crystals and the air and scattered. Snowflakes are 95% air, which results in low density and relatively slow falling speed (0.9 km/h).
In the Eskimo language, there are more than 20 words for the name of snow. More than half of the world's population has never seen snow, except in photographs.
The largest snowflake was witnessed on January 28, 1887 during a snowfall in Fort Keo, Montana, USA; it had a diameter of 15 inches (about 38 cm). Usually, snowflakes are about 5 mm in diameter with a mass of 0.004 g.
Snow reflects 95% of solar energy. That is, under the sun, it may not melt at all (which happens in the mountains). It melts for a different reason: in cities, dust settles on the snow, it heats up in the sun and because of it the snow melts.
In some high mountain areas, such as California's Sierra Nevada, you can see watermelon snow in summer. It is pink in color and has the smell and taste of watermelon. This phenomenon is due to the presence of Chlamydomonas nivalis algae in the snow, which contain the red pigment astaxanthin.
When squeezed, the snow makes a sound resembling a creak (crunch). This sound occurs when walking on snow, pressing on fresh snow with sledge runners, skis, when making snowballs, etc.
The creak of snow is heard at temperatures below -2 degrees. It is believed that this is due to the destruction of the crystals.
By the end of winter, the territory of the Northern Hemisphere is wrapped in a snow cover of 13,500 billion tons.
Once the wife of the French King Louis XIV, Madame Maintenon, wanted to ride in a sleigh in the middle of summer. The next morning, she was given a many-kilometer "snow" track of salt and sugar along the roads of Versailles.
The Japanese nuclear physicist Ukichiro Nakaya (1900–1962) created his book on snowflakes (Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial, published in 1954) and defined a classification scheme for snowflakes, in which he subdivided them into 41 individual morphological types. ; he was the first to determine the dependence of the shape of crystals on the temperature and humidity of the environment. In the native city of the scientist Katayamazu there is a Museum of Snow and Ice named after him.
In a year, 10 to the 24th degree of snowflakes falls.
On Mars, both snow that is familiar to us and snow from solid carbon dioxide falls (in addition to the permanent polar caps from ordinary ice, seasonal caps from carbon dioxide, better known as “dry” ice, regularly form on Mars
For some of us, the winter months are an uninvited guest in the form of endless snow. I will tell you interesting facts about fluffy snow that each of us should know.
Snowflakes are minerals
As water droplets freeze, the surrounding water vapor condenses on their surface. Because of the V-shaped angle between the oxygen and the two hydrogen atoms in each water molecule, the molecules attach to each other in a hexagonal pattern. Therefore, snowflakes first form as hexagonal prismatic crystals that are about the size of a dot in a sentence.
Prismatic crystals can be slender columns like wooden pencils, flat like six-sided plates of glass, or anything in between. As more water vapor is attached to them, the columns expand or become acicular, while the plates develop six branches that branch off themselves, eventually forming the familiar, fern-like shape of the snowflakes. A typical snowflake contains 180 billion water molecules.
The structure of each snowflake depends on the water available and the temperature with which it interacts. Even snowflakes next to each other form into different shapes. That is why, in fact, there are no two identical snowflakes.
Statistically, this famous fact sounds dubious. Every winter, an average of one septillion (that's 1 followed by 24 zeros) snowflakes falls from the sky. If we take into account all the winters in the past, it is quite logical to assume that two snowflakes must have been identical. However, the complexity of snowflakes is so great that their variety is almost endless. And if we consider them atomically, their complexity will grow even more. Approximately 1 in 3,000 hydrogen atoms has a neutron in its nucleus, making it heavy hydrogen. These changes in hydrogen are distributed differently in each snowflake and reduce the chances of two identical snowflakes forming to almost zero.
Despite their differences, snowflakes are the same in that their molecules adopt an ordered crystal lattice structure. And because they are hard, natural, and inorganic, snow is put into an unexpected classification: minerals. That's right, snow is in the same class as diamonds, sapphires and rubies. If you don't mind keeping your hand in the freezer, then it could probably be encrusted in a ring.
Snowflakes begin their lives as grains of sand.
Moisture is certainly a necessary ingredient in snow. However, water is everywhere in the atmosphere in the form of vapor and small droplets, and only part of this moisture becomes snow. The catalyst for this process is the condensation nucleus. These cores can be anything from certain air pollution to ash from forest fires or volcanic eruptions, or radioactive particles from nuclear explosions. They can also be sea salt, meteoritic dust from space, dust from Earth, or pollen.
When the atmosphere is too hot or dry, dust and water remain separated. The dust creates atmospheric fog, which can sometimes be seen hanging over large cities during the summer. Water droplets do not freeze instantly when the air temperature drops to 0 degrees Celsius and can remain in a supercooled state down to -40 degrees Celsius. However, when the droplets come into contact with the hard surface of the dust particles, they freeze at much higher temperatures, in some cases temperatures as high as -6 degrees Celsius. Since each dust particle is different from the others, the droplets freeze at different temperatures.
Groats: falling snowballs 
Snowflakes are quite small and when the atmosphere is cold and dry, they stay that way. Dry snow is very annoying for those who like to play snowballs, because there is not enough moisture in it for the snow to stick together into snowballs.
But when the troposphere is wholly or partially warm, the snowflakes thaw slightly, resulting in a wet film on their outer side. When another snowflake hits it, they stick together to form a larger snowflake. Then the snowflake grows bigger and bigger, colliding with other snowflakes. If only a gentle wind is present, these snowflakes stay together on their way to land, reaching the size of a silver dollar or more. The largest snowflake in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records, fell on a ranch in Fort Keogh, Montana in January 1887. The rancher measured it and saw that it was 38 centimeters in diameter, about the size of a frisbee plate.
Snowflakes can also form graupel, a separate type of precipitation. Don't be surprised if you've never heard of them, because it's often mistaken for hail or sleet. Hail is usually associated with thunderstorms, not blizzards. In addition, its formation requires updrafts of wind blowing at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour or more. A drop of precipitation freezes and an updraft of air sends it up, where it collides with more water, which forms another layer on it. Thus, the hail grows in size until it becomes too heavy to be carried upward by the air current. It can become as big as a golf ball. If you cut it open, you can see the rings indicating the layers of ice. Another name for sleet is ice pellets, rain that freezes just before it hits the ground.
Groats, on the other hand, start life as a snowflake. As the snowflake falls, it passes through a cloud of supercooled droplets approximately 10 millimeters in diameter. The drop sticks to the snowflake and freezes. The image above is a real dendritic snowflake. A large knobby ball is attached to its center. These grains tend to remain small and much softer than the icy surface of the hail. They are tiny snowballs that are only suitable for snowball fights between Jonathan Swift's Lilliputians.
Snow is not always white 
Snow appears white because the complex structure of snowflakes gives it multiple surfaces to reflect light across the entire color spectrum. What little sunlight a snowflake absorbs also spreads evenly. Because the spectrum of visible light is white, snow appears white to us. In fact, this is why we see most white matter as white. This is due to the unusual way they scatter light. Without their complex structure, snowflakes are liquid water or pure ice that is transparent, not white.
Snowflakes don't have to be white either. Blue snow is an alternative result of scattering and absorption of light. Blues are more difficult to absorb than other colors and if we look at the snow from afar we can see the blues among the whites.
Photosynthetic algae can also turn snow red, orange, purple, brown, or green. The most common color is red or pink and is commonly referred to as "watermelon snow" due to its color and sweet taste (although it is not recommended to be eaten). Snow is known to fall in different colors, usually due to air pollution. In 2007, orange, foul-smelling and oily snow fell in Siberia.
Deadly Snow
Approximately 105 snowstorms occur in the United States each year and 39 million tons of snow can fall during each storm. That's the equivalent of 11,000 Empire State Buildings of snow falling on American heads every year. Is it any wonder that snowstorms can cause infrastructure to stop functioning in entire cities?
A 2010 study found that local economies could suffer $300 million to $700 million in damage from one day of infrastructure downtime. And that's not counting lost tax revenues. It also does not reflect the cost of snow clearing. The state of Missouri spent $1.2 million to put salt on its roads during one February blizzard in 2011.
In addition, there is a payoff in the form of lives. Since 1936, snowstorms have resulted in 200 deaths annually. Approximately 70 percent of these deaths are due to car accidents. Another 25 percent are the result of overexertion from shoveling snow or pushing cars. The other 5 percent is due to roof collapses, house fires, carbon monoxide poisoning from stranded cars, or electric shock from downed power lines.
And that's not even counting snowstorms, which depend not on snowfall, but on a constant (three hours or more) wind blowing at a speed of at least 56 kilometers per hour. Blizzards are not as common or as deadly as other extreme weather events such as hurricanes or tornadoes, but not all hurricanes or tornadoes are fatal. Unlike almost every blizzard that results in loss of life.
In February 1972, Iran suffered a blizzard that lasted a week. During this time, several villages were covered with an 8-meter layer of snow, because of which all the inhabitants died. The number of deaths reached 4,000. For comparison, the deadliest tornado in history, which occurred in Bangladesh in 1989, claimed the lives of 1,300 people.
giant snowman
Most of us can't make real snow sculptures. The best we get is three large balls stacked on top of each other with a carrot for a nose and coals for eyes. Stepping back to admire our creation, we often think about who could do it better. And here is the answer to your question.
The world's largest snowman was "Olympia" (Olympia), a height of 37.2 meters according to the Guinness Book of Records. She was named after an elderly Maine senator at the time (Olympia Snowe and the townspeople of Bethel spent a month sculpting a snowman in 2008. Her eyelashes were made from skis and her eyes were made from giant wreaths, her lips were made from old tires painted red.The snow woman's arms were two 8.2-meter pine trees.To give her style, a 30.5-meter scarf was thrown over her, car tires were fastened in the form of buttons, and a 2-meter pendant was hung around her neck.
While she may well not want to admit it, she weighs 6 million kilograms.
artificial snow 
People have been attaching wooden planks to their feet and skiing down mountains for the past 4,000 years, but it wasn't until the 1800s that skiing was recognized as a recreational and sporting event. Another 50 years passed before the first snow-making machine was patented. In March 1949 Wayne Pierce, Art Hunt and Dave Richey attached a soda hose to a spray paint compressor. They demonstrated how water pushed through a spout is sprayed onto the mist, allowing it to solidify even at higher temperatures.
In 1961, Alden Hanson patented a snow machine that used a fan to shoot snowflakes over long distances. In 1975, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin discovered an even better nucleating agent: a biodegradable protein that helps water form ice crystals. In other words: dirt. As with sand and natural snow, it acted as a catalyst for freezing water in warm weather. Today, snow machines ("guns") make snow in much the same way as Mother Nature does.
When the 2014 Winter Olympics were held in the beach resort of Sochi, Russia, the organizers had 500 snow machines ready to make sure there was enough snow. The average February temperature in Sochi is 4.4 degrees Celsius. So, just in case, the Olympic Committee stocked up on 710,000 cubic meters of snow taken from the Caucasus Mountains last winter.
In preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Chinese scientists claimed they had caused the first artificial snowfall over the Tibetan Plateau. In 2007, they fired cigarette-sized sticks of silver iodide into the clouds, causing 1 centimeter of snow to fall. The molecular lattice of silver-plated iodine is similar to water and bonds with it, acting like sand on natural snow and freezing the water. China used it again in 2009, hoping to ease the drought around Beijing. It is not clear whether cloud seeding works, mainly because it is difficult to prove whether snow was going to come from the impending cloud anyway.
Of course, sometimes people really need it to snow indoors. This requires artificial snow. One of the easiest ways to create it is to add cold water to sodium polyacrylate. This results in the formation of crystals that look and feel like real snow. Well, where can you find sodium polyacrylate? In disposable diapers. You read that right: every time a baby pees in a diaper, it also makes warm, yellow snow.
It also snows on two planets that are our neighbors in the solar system. 
Mars experiences wild fluctuations in temperature. If you were standing at the Martian equator, you could slip out of your boots, but you would still need a hat. The reason is that the temperature at your feet will be 21 degrees Celsius, and at chest level 0 degrees Celsius. That's why you would be able to see the snow on your shoulders disappear before it hits your fingers. In 2008, Mars Lander observed Martian snowfall, which evaporated before the snow hit the ground.
However, Martian snow actually reaches the surface, especially around the poles. The photo above shows the North Pole of Mars. This snow is not water. It's frozen carbon dioxide. The crystals are microscopic, probably the size of red blood cells. They fall out like mist. Dry and powdery particles don't snowball, but that would be a skier's dream. In rare cases, water-ice still falls on Mars.
Snow also falls on Venus and is much stranger than Martian snow. It is not made up of water or carbon dioxide. Venusian snow is made of metal.
Venus's lowlands are dotted with pyrite minerals. Along with the strongest atmospheric pressure and temperatures up to 480 degrees Celsius, the minerals evaporate, rise into the atmosphere, which consists of carbon dioxide. At higher and colder altitudes atop the great Venusian mountains, a metallic mist envelops the slopes in bismuth sulfide and lead sulfide, better known as bismuthine and galena.
Science does not know if real snow falls on Venus, but rain has been seen on its surface. Again, rain on Venus is very different from rain on Earth. It is made up of sulfuric acid.
The biggest snowball fights in the world
At the moment, the largest snowball fight in the world is held by residents of Seattle. Anyone who has lived in the Emerald City knows that in this city it rains much more often than it snows. So when Seattle wanted to sponsor a fundraiser that ended in a legendary snowball fight, they had to bring 34 truckloads (or 74,000 kilograms) of snow from the Cascade Mountains to downtown Seattle, right next to the Space Needle.
Six thousand tickets for the fight were sold online and each ticket holder received a bracelet. On the designated Snow Day, January 12, 2013, 5,834 ticket holders scanned their wristbands before entering the arena. The arena was roughly divided in half with several snow forts dotted around the perimeter. Some participants brought equipment for making snowballs.
The previous record was held by 5387 South Koreans throwing more snowballs into the air than each other. It couldn't happen in Seattle. At 5:30 p.m., 130 judges from the Guinness Book of Records surrounded the area and gave the signal to fight. They disqualified those who did not throw a snowball within the next 90 seconds. The video shows huge curtains of flying snowballs. Some participants received scars. At the end of the allotted time, Seattle set a new record. By the end of the day, $50,000 had been raised for the Boys and Girls Club.
The unofficial record for the biggest snowball fight belongs to long-dead men. During the civil war, the two Confederate blocs attacked each other with nothing more than snowballs. Two blizzards on February 19 and 21, 1863, brought 43 centimeters of snow to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where General Thomas' 2nd Corps was camped for the winter.
General Robert Hoke's brigade had a friendly rivalry with Colonel William Stiles' 16th Regiment. On the morning of February 25, five North Carolina Hawk regiments attacked Stiles' camp. The residents of the state of Georgia, of whom Stiles' regiment mainly consisted, fought off the attack and moved on Hawke's camp. Robert Hawk's soldiers were waiting with their bags filled with snowballs. The close combat that followed was about 10,000 participants.
The coolest annual snow festival
If you love snow, then there is a place on Earth where you should go. It is so amazing that it can outshine winter. Every January, nearly 30 million visitors travel to Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China, to attend the International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. The average temperature in Harbin is -17 degrees Celsius, and the recorded temperature is -35 degrees Celsius. Thanks to this, there are all conditions for sculptors on snow and ice to create their own patterns.
The festival began in 1963 as an ice lamp garden party. It was delayed for decades due to the Cultural Revolution in China, but was revived as an annual event in 1985. The festival is entirely paid for by the Chinese government and lasts for about a month, ending with a day dedicated to destroying the sculptures with ice picks.
Ice lanterns are hollowed-out sculptures with a candle inside that are still part of the celebrations, but the crowd wants to see life-sized ice buildings and structures. In December 2007, 600 sculptors took part in the construction of the world's largest snow sculpture to open the 2008 festival. The sculpture called "Romantic Feelings" reached a height of 35 meters, and its length was 200 meters. It included an ice girl, a cathedral and a Russian-style temple.
