What’s the difference between ice and snow? Aren’t they both frozen water?
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They’re both ice, but snow is ice that has formed into tiny specs of flaky crystals with sticking-out-bits. Those sticking-out-bits on snowflakes prevent the ice crystals from fitting together tightly. A pile of snowflakes has lots and lots of air gaps between the snowflakes because the sticky-out-bits get hung up on each other. A layer of snow is about 90 percent air trapped between the sticky-out-bits. That’s why snowstorms can create very deep layers of snow. The amount of water that would make 1 cm of rain makes 10 cm of snow.
More interesting is this – what is the difference between snow and rain? High in the atmosphere it’s always cold (think WW2 bomber pilots wearing thick furry jackets even in summer). The cloud water vapor condenses around dusty particles into a frozen crystal with sticky-out-bits. Then it starts dropping. As it drops it gets into warmer air. If the air further down is warm enough, those ice crystals melt into water drops. If the air further down isn’t warm enough, they stay as ice crystals.
Basically rain *is* snow… that melted on the way down to the ground.
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