13 Facts About Snow That Will Give You the Chills

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Hey folks! Looking to beat the summer heat? Check out our video, "Facts About Snow That Will Give You the Chills"! It's packed with cool and frosty tidbits about snow that will make you forget all about the blazing sun. Grab a cold drink, kick back, and let us cool you down with some icy facts!

Transcript

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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