If you throw 1 kg cotton and 1 kg watermelon at somone, why does the watermelon hit you harder despite it being the same weight?
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The cotton deforms, absorbing the energy of the impact and spreading out the deceleration in time (longer time to stop = less force). The watermelon is rigid so things immediately proceed to “let’s see who breaks into pieces first”. If you compress the cotton *real* hard into a ball and shrinkwrap it in something that can hold it in that shape, it can definitely conk you at least as hard as a watermelon. This is the same with snowballs: if you make two identical snowballs that are loosely packed, then go ham and press the hell out of one until it is basically a chunk of ice, it will hurt a lot more on impact than the other, soft version (and still weigh the same, though in a smaller form).
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