What’s the difference between ice and snow? Aren’t they both frozen water?
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Ice is 90% water, 10% air.
Snow is 10% water, 90% air.
If you were to put ice in a cup to the top and let it melt, the cup will be 90% full when it melts.
If you were to put snow in a cup to the top and let it melt, the cup will be 10% full, assuming you lightly place the snow in the cup without packing it down.
You how a snowflake looks like that? It is made of ice but it is structure with gaps in it. When the snowflakes are in large clumps there is tons of air even as they rest on top of each other. If you have air inside ice it has a white colour so the white of snow is the air and ice interacting. It isn’t one solid mass that can be seen through but rather you “see through” part of the ice of a snowflake just to see another bit of the snowflake or another flake entirely.
The fluffyness is again a property of the air space between the ice. The more you compact snow the more it begins to have the qualities of ice but it needs to melt and then refreeze entirely for 100% of the air to be removed and become one solid crystal as opposed to lots of crystals mushed together. Sand and glass is similar.
You how a snowflake looks like that? It is made of ice but it is structure with gaps in it. When the snowflakes are in large clumps there is tons of air even as they rest on top of each other. If you have air inside ice it has a white colour so the white of snow is the air and ice interacting. It isn’t one solid mass that can be seen through but rather you “see through” part of the ice of a snowflake just to see another bit of the snowflake or another flake entirely.
The fluffyness is again a property of the air space between the ice. The more you compact snow the more it begins to have the qualities of ice but it needs to melt and then refreeze entirely for 100% of the air to be removed and become one solid crystal as opposed to lots of crystals mushed together. Sand and glass is similar.
All snow is ice but not all ice is snow.
If you just talk about “ice” to a random person with no further context, they’ll probably imagine a huge solid chunk of the stuff. Snow is ultimately made of the same stuff, but the chunks it comes in are very small. A pile of these tiny chunks behaves considerably different from one large solid chunk, which is why the “pile of tiny chunks” version gets its own speciel name.
The difference between snow and “ice” is basically the same difference between sand and “rocks”. Sand is ultimately just a bunch of tiny rocks, but if you said “rocks” to someone in casual conversation, sand is probably not going to come to mind.
All snow is ice but not all ice is snow.
If you just talk about “ice” to a random person with no further context, they’ll probably imagine a huge solid chunk of the stuff. Snow is ultimately made of the same stuff, but the chunks it comes in are very small. A pile of these tiny chunks behaves considerably different from one large solid chunk, which is why the “pile of tiny chunks” version gets its own speciel name.
The difference between snow and “ice” is basically the same difference between sand and “rocks”. Sand is ultimately just a bunch of tiny rocks, but if you said “rocks” to someone in casual conversation, sand is probably not going to come to mind.
Have you ever gotten a bowl of ice cream, let it melt (on accident or on purpose), and then tried to freeze it again? Instead of turning back into ice cream, it freezes into a hard block.
This is because when ice cream is made it is constantly being stirred, letting air be captured in the freezing cream and forcing smaller crystals to form. These two things don’t happen to a bowl of cream that is just set in the freezer, so the bowl freezes without any extra air and into fewer, larger, stronger crystals.
Snow is like ice cream; while it was freezing, it was being stirred by the moving air in a cloud. There’s air captured inside it, and the ice crystals are smaller, weaker, softer, and more numerous. Sure, it’s still ice crystals, but the shape of those crystals are different enough to change so much about it.
Meanwhile, “ice” is usually the larger crystals without air inside of them. So they have all the properties of ice, but none of captured air or small crystals.
(you could also compare sand to sandstone; smaller things of a big thing have different material properties)
Have you ever gotten a bowl of ice cream, let it melt (on accident or on purpose), and then tried to freeze it again? Instead of turning back into ice cream, it freezes into a hard block.
This is because when ice cream is made it is constantly being stirred, letting air be captured in the freezing cream and forcing smaller crystals to form. These two things don’t happen to a bowl of cream that is just set in the freezer, so the bowl freezes without any extra air and into fewer, larger, stronger crystals.
Snow is like ice cream; while it was freezing, it was being stirred by the moving air in a cloud. There’s air captured inside it, and the ice crystals are smaller, weaker, softer, and more numerous. Sure, it’s still ice crystals, but the shape of those crystals are different enough to change so much about it.
Meanwhile, “ice” is usually the larger crystals without air inside of them. So they have all the properties of ice, but none of captured air or small crystals.
(you could also compare sand to sandstone; smaller things of a big thing have different material properties)
AFAIK They’re both ice, Just snow is less compact because it falls as individual crystals that stack on top of each other, but then once it melts and refreezes the space in the middle is no longer there making it what we know more as ice. On the other hand you can put ice cubes in a blender to make slush, which is just wet snow
AFAIK They’re both ice, Just snow is less compact because it falls as individual crystals that stack on top of each other, but then once it melts and refreezes the space in the middle is no longer there making it what we know more as ice. On the other hand you can put ice cubes in a blender to make slush, which is just wet snow
Ice crystal formed by individual water molecules that are suspended in a gas or fluid coming in contact with and freezing to a super structure make snowflakes (larger).
Ice formed from a bunch of liquid water molecules pooled together, not aerosolized or evaporated or dissolved into a gas or fluid, makes ice.
Basically it’s density before and after.
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