– Mother Nature could make a snowman all by herself! It’s rare, but sometimes large snowballs called “Snow Rollers” are formed naturally by the wind rolling small chunks of snow along the ground.
– When snowflakes fall from the sky, they usually connect to make bigger snowflakes. The biggest snowflake ever recorded was 38 cm in diameter!
– Snow isn’t actually white… actually, it doesn’t have any colour at all. Like ice, snow is actually translucent, but we see white because the crystals in snowflakes act as prisms which break up the light into a multitude of colours. These colours bounce around so much between snowflakes, reflecting and absorbing light, that the end result comes out to be white.
– Ice heats space! Yup, the ice in the North and South Pole acts like a mirror and reflects the heat that comes from the sun, making the heat bounce off the ice and back into space.
– Scientists say that it IS possible for two snowflakes to look alike! But it’s extremely unlikely, and it would be almost impossible to find them.
– While some animals and plants use snow to stay warm while they hibernate, it seems snow can also keep things quiet. The air pockets in fresh snow can absorb and trap sound waves. But, this doesn’t last long! Once the surface of the fresh snow hardens, it reflects the sound, making it travel farther.
– If you have exposed skin, you’re more likely to get sunburned in the winter than the summer! This is because reflection off snow can intensify the suns UVA and UVB rays.