Snow Daze

I can't believe the snow and cold we have had. The snow I actually like, but this crazy fifteen degrees below zero- and we are not talking about Celsius- is for the birds. Actually the birds don't even like it- well maybe the penguins. This would be the year, of course, that we aren't going to FL. Once again we have been unsure about Cae's ears, and our mid-winter break is shorter this year. Clint and I have virtually the same breaks, even though we teach in different districts, due to a county wide calender. We had a snow day today. Clint even got in on this one. KCTC doesn't close unless eighty percent of the schools they serve are closed. Usually it takes GR Public to close, for KCTC to close and GR Public hardly ever closes. They did today. I haven't had a complete week with my students since the semester started. I don't even know all of their names yet. The cabin fever has sent me back to writing and in scrolling through my stories I found one on snow. This is from a few years ago- probably close to ten- and they are no longer survaying- I went back to the web site, but they have pictures and even a book. Check it out.
www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/primer/primer.htm

Snow
Snow is truly amazing. There are billions of individual snow crystals that fall in any given snow storm. According to the Snow Crystal Primer put out by the folks at Cal Tech. 10 to the 24th power snow flakes fall every year here on our fabulous planet. According to their web sight on snow crystals it is really true that no two are exactly alike. I was contemplating snow on my way into school today as I stopped to pick up the mail out of my mail box. I live in the great state of Michigan on the west side where we are the recipients of this nifty phenomena called lake effect snow. What happens as it was explained to me by a meteorologist friend, it is really just simple laws of physics. First water has a tendency to remain constant in temperature. Lake Michigan consisting of 136 to the tenth power gallons of water is a pretty extensive quantity to remain constant. During the warm spring and summer months the Great Lake warms up to as much as 70 degrees F. Then fall comes and the jet stream pumps arctic air down from Canada across the lake. The temperature difference of cold air and warm water causes a great evaporation suction of water off the lake. The damp air mass then moves on shore. The land mass is cooler in temperature causing the air to drop it’s moisture in the form of lake effect snow and lots of it. Here in the fair city of Cedar Springs Michigan we have received no less than seventy five inches and it is not yet the first of January. That is over six feet of total snow this season. All that snow is made up of billions and billions of individual crystals all completely different.
As I went to get the mail I discovered that my mail box is almost covered and I started to ponder about snow. Thus the trip to the Cal Tech web sight. I have lived in the snow belt in Michigan my entire life and some folks in the sunny state of California taught me some things I didn’t know about snow. I learned that there are scientific terms for snow. A snow crystal is what most of us think of as an individual six sided snow flake. These are crystals that grow from condensing water vapor and start around a nucleus of some sort, frequently dust. Think about that the next time you are dusting or not dusting your house. Maybe I won’t dust just to encourage the snow crystals. Snow flakes are clusters of these crystals bonded together and can grow up to 10cm across. Then there is rime which is frozen fog or what I was taught to call hoarfrost. The diamonds spoke of in Robert Frost poems. Then Graupel a nasty word for a nasty substance scientifically described as a loose gathering of water droplets frozen together. What we here call sleet. And finally hail. These are chunks of solid ice. It can come down as small as barley or as big as grapefruit. This started me to thinking of all the different kinds of snow we have and all of the very unscientific names we have created to describe it.
There is the wet heavy snow that as kids we called snow man snow because of it’s good packing quality, as a grown up it is also called heart attack snow because of the folks who do such when shoveling the heavy stuff. Then squeaky snow as the temperature drops and the snow squeaks when you walk on it. There is puffy snow that falls from the sky like feathers. There is the sleet that falls and then freezes coating everything with a crystal coating of ice. There is slush which is what happens in the beginnings of spring when the piles of snow start to melt into a primordial soup returning the crystals to the water cycle. There is crusty snow when the top layer has formed a crust and you break through it with your feet and it makes a crunching, popping sound. When Jack London described the cold and snow in “To Build a Fire” I knew of what he spoke. I have often thought that folks who don’t have to live with the white stuff falling from the heavens for at least part of their lives are some how poorer for the lack of experience. I remember as a kid I had a cousin who lived in Hawaii, and she was visiting in the summer for a wedding. I tried vainly to explain snow to her. I failed miserably. The folks at Cal Tech make it in a temperature controlled lab. Maybe they have a glint of understanding. I was once told the Inuit Indians have over fifty different descriptors for snow, how wonderfully amazing I think. Next time you are in a snow storm give this a thought also go out and examine the crystals. The folks at Cal Tech say all you need is a magnifying glass and a smooth surface. They recommend a car wind shield and then if you really want to feel a part of the investigation write them back. On their web page they have a questionnaire for you to fill out. They are trying to catalog the best snow watching in the world. I can tell you where it is- by my mail box.