A report on Snow

Norwegian train plowing through drifted snow
Extratropical cyclonic snowstorm, February 24, 2007—(Click for animation.)
Frontal snowsquall moving toward Boston, Massachusetts
Cold northwesterly wind over Lake Superior and Lake Michigan creating lake-effect snowfall
Freshly fallen snowflakes
An early classification of snowflakes by Israel Perkins Warren
An animation of seasonal snow changes, based on satellite imagery
New York City during a 2016 blizzard, which produced local wind gusts up to 42 mph and dropped 27.5 in of snow, breaking the city's one-day snowfall record.
Snow-covered trees in Kuusamo, Finland
Fresh snow beginning to metamorphose: The surface shows wind packing and sastrugi. In the foreground are hoar frost crystals, formed by refrozen water vapor emerging to the cold surface.
Firn—metamorphosed multi-year snow
Snow drifts forming around downwind obstructions
A powder snow avalanche
Snowmelt-induced flooding of the Red River of the North in 1997
Snow pit on the surface of a glacier, profiling snow properties where the snow becomes increasingly dense with depth as it metamorphoses towards ice
Snowfall and snowmelt are parts of the Earth's water cycle.
Traffic stranded in a 2011 Chicago snowstorm.
Winter conditions on Ontario Highway 401 in Toronto due to a snowsquall.
Deicing an aircraft during a snow event
Satellite view of the Indus River, showing snow in the Himalayas, which feeds it, and agricultural areas in Pakistan that draw on it for irrigation.
Extreme snow accumulation on building roofs
Icings resulting from meltwater at the bottom of the snow pack on the roof, flowing and refreezing at the eave as icicles and from leaking into the wall via an ice dam.
Alpine skiing.
Algae, Chlamydomonas nivalis, that thrive in snow form red areas in the suncups on this snow surface
Arctic fox, a predator of smaller animals that live beneath the snow
Trucks plowing snow on a highway in Missouri
Airport snow-clearing operations include plowing and brushing
Swiss low-profile, train-mounted snowplow
Bivouac of Napoleon's Grande Armée, during the winter retreat from Moscow
Finnish ski troops during the invasion of Finland by the Soviet Union
Army vehicles coping with snow during the Battle of the Bulge of World War II.
Norwegian military preparations during the 2009 Cold Response exercise
Navy SEALs training for winter warfare at Mammoth Mountain, California.
Worldwide occurrence of snowfall. Snow at reference above sea level (meters):Below 500: annually. Below 500: annually, but not in all of its territory. 500: above annually, below occasionally. Above 500: annually. Above 2,000: annually. Any elevation: none.

Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes.

- Snow
Norwegian train plowing through drifted snow

31 related topics with Alpha

Overall
A National Weather Service snowboard and snow-measuring stick

Snowboard (meteorology)

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A National Weather Service snowboard and snow-measuring stick
A MSC-approved weaverboard. The board is 42.5 cm square and 2 cm high. The lip extends 1 cm above the actual board. The stick is 38.5 cm high.

A snowboard (US) or weaverboard (Canada) is a meteorological tool used to aid in the obtaining of accurate measurement of snow accumulation.

An Antarctic Automatic Weather Stations Project AWS in Antarctica

Automatic weather station

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Automated version of the traditional weather station, either to save human labour or to enable measurements from remote areas.

Automated version of the traditional weather station, either to save human labour or to enable measurements from remote areas.

An Antarctic Automatic Weather Stations Project AWS in Antarctica
An RWIS station
Data-logger for automatic weather station
Enclosure with solar panel for data-logger of weather station
AWS

Also, precipitation measurements are difficult, especially for snow, as the gauge must empty itself between observations.

Hard rime on a tree

Rime ice

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Generally minor compared to clear ice.

Generally minor compared to clear ice.

Hard rime on a tree
Hard rime on trees in the Black Forest of Germany
Electron microscope image of rime ice on both ends of a "capped column" snowflake
Soft rime
Soft rime

Under some atmospheric conditions, forming and descending snow crystals may encounter and pass through atmospheric supercooled cloud droplets.

Traditional snowshoe maker, c. 1900-1930

Snowshoe

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Traditional snowshoe maker, c. 1900-1930
Plains Ojibwa performing a snowshoe dance. Drawing by George Catlin
16th century depiction of Swedish traveler with both horse and man wearing snowshoes
Teardrop snowshoes and Bearpaw snowshoes in the Gatineau Park
Canadian couple snowshoeing in 1907
Snowshoeing in Kerava, Finland in March 2011
Properly adjusted bindings on two snowshoes of different size. Note use of gaiters.
Underside of a modern fixed-rotation binding snowshoe, showing cleats for traction on steep slopes
MSR solid plastic snowshoes
Snowshoers in Bryce Canyon
Some modern snowshoes have bars that can be flipped up for ascending steep slopes. The wearer's heel can rest on the bar.
A broken snowshoe trail
A young snowshoer with a wild bird
A snowshoer packing downhill skis
Rawhide webbing

Snowshoes are specialized outdoor gear for walking over snow.

Aomori

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Capital city of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of Japan.

Capital city of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of Japan.

Sannai-Maruyama Site
View of Aomori from Aomori Bay
Aomori City Hall
A float from Aomori's Nebuta Festival
The Memorial Statue of the Hakkoda Death March portrays Fusanosuke Gotō

Aomori and its surrounding area are renowned for heavy snowfall, the heaviest among all Japanese cities, and, in fact, among the heaviest in the world.

Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain

Mountain

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Elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock.

Elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock.

Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain
Mount Fuji, Japan's highest mountain
Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa's highest mountain
Peaks of Mount Kenya
Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Russia and Europe
Puncak Jaya in Indonesia, the highest mountain in Oceania
Geological cross-section of Fuji volcano
Illustration of mountains that developed on a fold that has been thrusted
Pirin Mountain, Bulgaria, part of the fault-block Rila-Rhodope massif
The Catskills in Upstate New York represent an eroded plateau.
A combination of high latitude and high altitude makes the northern Urals in picture to have climatic conditions that make the ground barren.
Mount Siguniang, Sichuan, China
An alpine mire in the Swiss Alps
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The city of La Paz reaches up to 4000 m in elevation.
Mountaineers climbing in South Tyrol
Chimborazo, Ecuador. The point on Earth's surface farthest from its centre.

As the altitude increases, the main form of precipitation becomes snow and the winds increase.

A snow gauge

Snow gauge

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Type of instrument used by meteorologists and hydrologists to gather and measure the amount of solid precipitation over a set period of time.

Type of instrument used by meteorologists and hydrologists to gather and measure the amount of solid precipitation over a set period of time.

A snow gauge

When snow is collected, the container is removed and replaced with a spare one.

Water cycle

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Biogeochemical cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth.

Biogeochemical cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth.

Time-mean precipitation and evaporation as a function of latitude as simulated by an aqua-planet version of an atmospheric GCM (GFDL's AM2.1) with a homogeneous “slab-ocean” lower boundary (saturated surface with small heat capacity), forced by annual mean insolation.
Global map of annual mean evaporation minus precipitation by latitude-longitude
Relationship between impervious surfaces and surface runoff
Diagram of the water cycle
Natural water cycle

Precipitation: Condensed water vapor that falls to the Earth's surface. Most precipitation occurs as rain, but also includes snow, hail, fog drip, graupel, and sleet. Approximately 505000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year, 398000 km3 of it over the oceans. The rain on land contains 107000 km3 of water per year and a snowing only 1000 km3. 78% of global precipitation occurs over the ocean.

The percentage of diffusely reflected sunlight relative to various surface conditions

Albedo

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Measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that reflects all incident radiation.

Measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that reflects all incident radiation.

The percentage of diffusely reflected sunlight relative to various surface conditions
2003–2004 mean annual clear-sky and total-sky albedo

This has been a concern since arctic ice and snow has been melting at higher rates due to higher temperatures, creating regions in the arctic that are notably darker (being water or ground which is darker color) and reflects less heat back into space.

Antarctica

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Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent.

Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent.

Antarctica, a composite satellite image
A speculative representation of Antarctica labelled as 'Terra Australis Incognito' on Jan Janssonius's Zeekaart van het Zuidpoolgebied (1657), Het Scheepvaartmuseum
Eastern Antarctica is to the right of the Transantarctic Mountains and Western Antarctica is to the left.
Vinson Massif from the northwest, the highest peak in Antarctica
Glossopteris sp. leaf from the Permian of Antarctica
The Antarctic Plate
Pine Island Glacier, photographed in November 2011
Ice mass loss since 2002
Image of the largest hole in the ozone layer recorded, in September 2006
Emperor penguins with juveniles
Orange lichen (Caloplaca) growing on the Yalour Islands, Wilhelm Archipelago
Refuse littering the shoreline at Bellingshausen Station on King George Island, photographed in 1992
A whale in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
Adélie Land, depicted by Jules Dumont d'Urville in his Voyage au Pôle Sud (1846)
The Nimrod Expedition of 1907–1909 (left to right): Frank Wild, Ernest Shackleton, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams
The "ceremonial" South Pole, at Amundsen–Scott Station
The U.S. delegate Herman Phleger signs the Antarctic Treaty in December 1959.
The cruise ship Silver Cloud in Wilhelmina Bay
An aerial view of McMurdo Station, the largest research station in Antarctica
An Antarctic meteorite, Allan Hills 84001 on display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
The Nimrod Expedition of 1907–1909 (left to right): Frank Wild, Ernest Shackleton, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams

Glaciologists study the history and dynamics of floating ice, seasonal snow, glaciers, and ice sheets.