00:00Throwing a snowball to your friends, putting a carrot on the snow person of yours, skating, and many more.
00:06It's the snowy winter spirit. Here's some facts about snow.
00:10Surprisingly, snow can come in different colors. Let's start with yellow snow.
00:16If it starts snowing when flowering trees are already in bloom, pollen is in the air too.
00:21Besides giving you allergies, it lands on snow-covered surfaces.
00:25In this scenario, snow blends with pollen, which results in this suspiciously yellow shade.
00:32The snow clouds can carry sand particles too.
00:35Yellowish-tinged snow was seen in South Korea in March 2006.
00:39The snow got the sand from the deserts of northern China.
00:43Pollen is oftentimes harmless.
00:46But sand-caused yellow snow isn't that innocent. It's related to air pollution.
00:50When NASA's Aura satellite detected this phenomenon, weather officials warned the public about the potential risks of this golden snow.
01:00Sometimes the color of the snow looks closer to brown, not even yellow.
01:04Certain trees, like oaks, carry a lot of tannins in the bark.
01:08These are organic compounds that protect the tree from harmful bacteria and funguses.
01:13These tannins can fall to the ground near the tree.
01:17For that to happen, it first needs to rain, and then the rain should turn into snow.
01:21The moisture makes the tannins run down.
01:25Have you ever just laid on the fresh snow and opened your mouth to let those tiny flakes in?
01:31How safe is it to eat those flakes, though?
01:34In most cases, it isn't.
01:35But here's a pro tip for snow eaters.
01:37The safest way to consume snow is by choosing a clean and white layer.
01:42Get some from the freshly fallen fluffiest part.
01:45And now, forget about it.
01:47You never know what random show in the street may contain.
01:51Blue-tinted snow is the next one on the list.
01:54A cloudy day will create darker shadows.
01:57Snow absorbs all color wavelengths.
01:59Well, almost all color wavelengths.
02:01It cannot completely absorb blue.
02:03The bottom line is that bluish snow forms due to the weather conditions.
02:08I mean, the snowflakes are actually translucent, since they're made up of ice crystals.
02:14These crystals reflect light.
02:15That's why, in regular cases, snow appears white to our eyes.
02:21Gray and black snow also exist.
02:24Here, I'm not talking about melted snow mixed with dirt near the roads.
02:28The one I'm referring to is created with a dust coming from the volcano.
02:32But it can be created with less exotic soot, ash, or motor vehicle exhaust.
02:38This type of snow is dirty.
02:40It might have a dusty or oily scent.
02:43If its color comes from petrochemicals, then it's probably toxic.
02:47The next one is watermelon snow.
02:50The name comes from the red and green color of the snow.
02:54Unlike other color versions, this one has a sweet and fruity scent.
02:58Different kinds of algae and bacteria produce watermelon snow.
03:03You would be very lucky to see it because it's seen during summer in alpine and coastal polar regions.
03:09The greenness comes from chlorophyll, and the redness comes from astaxanthin.
03:14This is sort of a pigment.
03:17Fun fact!
03:17Some animals, such as flamingos, crabs, and salmon, also get their color from that pigment.
03:23This phenomenon is super important ecologically.
03:27When the snow melts, it mixes into the waters and becomes a food source for organisms.
03:33Snow can come in different colors, but also different shapes too.
03:38An example would be snow rollers.
03:40To me, it looks as if someone is dragging an ice cream scoop through the ground.
03:44They are rare phenomenon because they need certain conditions to form.
03:48There should be wind, but it shouldn't be too strong.
03:52Typically, 30 miles per hour should do it.
03:54Yet, it depends on the snow too.
03:56It should be snowing, and how powerful the snow falls is another issue.
04:02Snow rollers occur in open prairies or hills with no obstacles like boulders or trees.
04:08It's a combo of two separate layers of snow.
04:11The first layer is the pre-existing sheet that crashed on the ground.
04:15The second one is a fresh layer of fallen snow.
04:19Imagine snow running down from the top of an ice rink, which doesn't hold on to what's under.
04:25Then, the wind carries some snow that is sticky enough to hold on to the things on its way.
04:30As the roller moves, it continues growing.
04:33If it's windy, and there's an opportunity for rolling down a hill.
04:38Now, I want to move on to other cool facts about snow.
04:41For instance, it's silence.
04:43Do you know how freshly fallen snow absorbs sound?
04:47Especially if you live in a busy city, you realize it's the quieter ambience.
04:52It literally absorbs sound waves.
04:55Think of it as a commercial sound absorbing product.
04:58Things change when it melts and refreezes.
05:01Then, the ice reflects sound waves.
05:04As a result, sound travels further.
05:06Plus, it gets clearer.
05:08It's not just us enjoying the snow.
05:12Apparently, some monkey species love it as much as we do.
05:16Japanese macaques or snow monkeys also make snowballs and play with them.
05:21Young macaques especially get attracted to snow.
05:24They steal one another's snowballs, then fight to get them back.
05:27Snow, blizzard, what else?
05:31I can count some words related to snow.
05:33But the Inuit, for example, has dozens of words for snow.
05:37And Scots has 421 terms related to the snow.
05:41For instance, scalf is a large snowflake.
05:44And unbrac means the beginning of a thaw.
05:46From one point of view, there's the cold and the risk of hypothermia.
05:53From the other point of view, animal burrows or human igloos.
05:57We associate snow with cold.
05:59But it warms you up, since snow consists of above 90% trapped air.
06:04It's a perfect insulator.
06:06We talked about snow itself.
06:09But what about snowflakes?
06:11The shape of a snowflake is bound to the air temperature around it.
06:15Researchers examined snowflakes and found out that long, thin, needle-like ice crystals form at around 28 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:24They also investigated other ice crystal samples taken from different temperatures.
06:30The flakes appear to be flat and plate-like in lower temperatures, such as 23 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:36The snowflake can also appear with six arms or a dendritic structure as ice crystals.
06:41And that again depends on the changes in the temperature surrounding each snowflake.
06:47Maybe you heard the saying that no two snowflakes are identical.
06:51A catalog of snowflakes supports this theory.
06:54One chemistry educator detected more than 30 different types of snowflakes.
06:59They are classified as column, plain, rimmed, irregular, and so on.
07:04The reason for all this variety is the path each snowflake makes to fall to the Earth.
07:10Each one of them faces a tiny bit of different atmospheric conditions on its way to the ground.
07:16All of them have six sides, that's for sure.
07:18But in 1988, a scientist found two identical snowflakes.
07:23Turns out, they can be identical.
07:25Snow can be seen in deserts too.
07:30I know it sounds super contradictory.
07:32We're accustomed to thinking about smoking hot sand, cactuses, and nothingness from a desert at first glance.
07:39In Death Valley or the Sahara Desert, snow is occasionally seen.
07:44In fact, in January 2022, some parts of the Sahara Desert got covered with a white blanket.
07:51It's not unlikely to happen all the time, but it's not impossible at all.
07:54You see, on some nights, the temperatures in the desert get low.
07:58Snow needs two things to form, cold temperatures and moist air.
08:03Sahara put a tick on both of these conditions.
08:06Bonus fact, how long is the tallest snow figure?
08:10In 2008, Bethel town residents in the U.S. united their forces with the people of surrounding towns to break a world record.
08:19The snow person was 120 feet tall.
08:21It took them more than one month to finish creating the figure.
08:26The Statue of Liberty was only a few inches taller than this figure.
08:31When we see a strong snowstorm, we call it a blizzard.
08:35That's not always so.
08:36You see, a snowstorm should meet some qualifications to be classified as a blizzard.
08:42For instance, the wind should be at least 35 miles per hour.
08:47Plus, the snow must decrease the visibility to a certain mile for three hours at the least.
08:53Otherwise, the snowfall can be named a snow squall or a snow burst.
08:58The snow must be named a snowman.
08:59The snow must be named a snowman.
09:00The snow must be named a snowman.
09:01The snow must be named a snowman.
09:02The snow must be named a snowman.
09:03The snow must be named a snowman.
09:04The snow must be named a snowman.
09:05The snow must be named a snowman.
09:06The snow must be named a snowman.
09:07The snow must be named a snowman.
09:08The snow must be named a snowman.
09:09The snow must be named a snowman.
09:10The snow must be named a snowman.
09:11The snow must be named a snowman.
09:12The snow must be named a snowman.
09:13The snow must be named a snowman.
09:14The snow must be named a snowman.
09:15The snow must be named a snowman.
09:16The snow must be named a snowman.
09:17The snow must be named a snowman.
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