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Winter Weather Awareness: Do you know how snow forms?

Have you ever wondered how snow forms? If you have, check this out. News 5 meteorologist Katie McGraw will quickly break it down so you can be an expert in SNOW time!

By: Katie McGraw

Posted at 8:00 AM, Nov 05, 2023

and last updated 2023-11-15 15:40:09-05

Have you ever wondered how snow forms? If you have - you have come to the right article! I will quickly break it down so you can be an expert in SNOW time!

Snow is frozen precipitation. All precipitation forms similarly within the water cycle. When gas or water vapor turns to liquid water or ice, the droplets condense on particles in the air. These particles could be dust, salt or smoke that act as nuclei and bind water molecules together. In the case of snow, it forms when an extremely cold water droplet freezes onto a dust particle in the sky and creates an ice crystal. As this ice crystal falls, water vapor freezes onto it and continues to build new crystals and the six arms of the snowflake. The ice crystals stay in the clouds until they grow too much, become too heavy, and then fall to the ground. Snow can fall as a single ice crystal, or sometimes one snowflake can have 100 ice crystals!

Rain can also start as an ice crystal in a cloud but eventually falls through warmer temperatures and lands as a liquid. Snow falls when the air between the clouds and the surface of the Earth remains below freezing.

A snowflake can travel through different environments, though, so two snowflakes basically never take the exact same path from the sky to the ground. Different temperature and humidity levels create different growth rates and patterns and determine the shape of each flake. If you look at snowflakes closely, you can see their uniqueness!