What’s the difference between ice and snow? Aren’t they both frozen water?
In: 732
Snow is made up of lots of tiny low density ice crystals called snowflakes. These are formed in the atmosphere by cooling down air to under the dew point at freezing temperatures. Ice is single large compact crystals. These crystals are usually formed by cooling down water to bellow freezing. So the big difference is basically the size and density of the crystals.
It is possible to make ice from snow. Obviously if you melt it and then freeze it, but you can also compress the snow so that the crystals start binding to each other from the pressure. This means that if you get a lot of snowfall then the bottom snow might turn to ice, this often happens in glaciers. Or if you drive vehicles over the snow it can turn to ice over time.
Latest Answers