Snow Facts

Every Snowflake starts as a speck that is too small for the human eye to see.

It is never too cold to snow.

The largest piece of ice that fell on the earth was a ice block that was 6 meters (20ft) across, it fell in Scotland on the 13th of August 1849.

The largest hailstone that was recorded fell on the 14th of April 1986, it weighed about 1kg (2.25lbs) in Bangladesh.The hailstorm killed about 92 people.

On the 28th of January 1887, the largest snowflakes in the world fell in Montana, USA in Fort Keogh.

A snowstorm can drop about 40 million tons of snow, which carries the same amount as 12o atom bombs.

The most snow that was made in a snowstorm is 4.8 metres (15.75ft) , between 13 - 19 February 1959. In Mt. Shasta, Ski Bowl California USA.

For about 400 years, scientists have been studying snowflakes.

The greastest snowfall that was recorded at the Phoenix, Arizona National Weather Office. The snow was one inch. It happened twice. The first one was on the 20 January 1933. The second time it happened was four years later and also on the same date.

The tallest snowman ever made was 34.63 metres and was made by people in Bethel, Maine USA. It took 14 days to build. It was completed on the 17th of February 1999. They called it Angus. It had cars tyres for its mouth and trees for his arms.

Water into Snow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQEVcCv_xkQ

This video was shot in Mount Washington Observatory. Water was boiled at 200F and then was thrown in the air, which was -35F it then turned into snow.

Snow Blindness

Snow blindness can occur in places that have very strong sun and lots of snow, like ski resorts, Antarctica, snow mountains, and many other places as well.

Snow blindness is very painful to the eye, it is caused when your eyes are unprotected by the UV rays that reflect from the snow or ice,

Snow blindness is like sunburn, but in the cornea of your eye. You may not notice until after a while.

Symptoms can have a range of your eyes having a bloodshot, it feels really rough and it slowly swells shut, in some cases you can become blind permanently.

To prevent snow blindness you should wear sunglasses that can conduct 5-10% of the visible light and absorb all of the UV rays. The glasses should have large lenses and also cover the side of your eyes, so that no light can go through the side. You should always wear your sunglasses even when the sky is dark and cloudy because the UV rays can seep through the sky.

If Snow blindness does occur to you, you can treat it by easing the pain with oral medicine. If you are wearing contact lenses then you should take them off. Don't rub your eyes, Wear the sunglasses until it completely disappears. There is also a special cream that can make the recovery speed up.

If your sunglasses get lost, or breaks. Then you can make an emergency google, which you cut a slit in dark fabric, or tape that is folded onto the sticky side. To avoid any reflection the SAS survival guide suggests that you should blacken under your eyes with charcoal.

The Colour of Snow

The colour of snow is white. But water is colourless. How is it then that if snow is made from water that it became white?.

Snow can be many colours depending on the conditions. Snow can be blue in colour when it is very close together. This is very common in the blue ice of glaciers.

Snow is tiny ice crystals stuck together. If you looked at an ice crystal by itself, you would see that the ice crystal is also clear. But snow is different. When snow forms, hundreds of tiny ice crystals stick together to form snowflakes.

The reason we see snow in the first place is because of the light. As snow falls through the air and lands on the ground, light is reflected off the surface of the ice crystals. Some of the light is scattered.

Visible light from the sun is made up of many wavelengths of light. Our eyes illustrate as different colors. When light hits an object, different wavelengths of light are absorbed and some are reflected back to our eyes.

No one can only see one snowflake at a time. Lots of times we see many snowflakes on the ground. As light hits the snow on the ground, there are so many locations for light to be reflected, that no single wavelength of light gets absorbed with anything continuously. All of the white light from the sun hitting the snow will reflect back and still be white light. Then snow on the ground appears white.




















These are Algaes that make the snow different colour.

http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/team/index.cfm?page=projectreports&year=8&teamID=14&projectID=1826

Snowflakes

Snow is formed when the cloud droplets freeze below its freezing point. Many things can affect the way the snowflake forms. The temperture, air currents and humidity can fix the shape and the size of the snowflake. Dirt and dust can get mixed up in the water and can affect the way the snowflake is weighed. Dirt and dust make the snowflake heavier, which causes cracks and breaks in the snowflake it is then easier for it to melt.

Six-sided hexagon crystals are shaped in very high clouds. Needles or flat six-sided crystals are shaped in the middle height clouds. Many different types of six-sided shapes ae formed in the low clouds.

The tempertures which make these types of snowflakes are:

• 32-25 F - It makes thin hexagonal plates



• 25-21 F - It makes needles



• 21-14 F - Hollow columns



• 14-10 F - Hexagons with dents[sector plates]



• 10-3 F - Lacy Hexagonal shapes[Dendrites]

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/snowflakes.htm

Introduction

Hi! I'm in Transtion Year. I'm doing a Geography Blog on Snow. In this blog im going to talk about Snowflakes, where snow occurs and all the different types of snow that can be found.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/exposing_snow.shtml