Is this conversion even right? I found it on google with little explanation. One inch of rain seems minuscule to 10 inches of snow but maybe I have a fundamental misunderstanding of how much one inch of rain actually is. Please help.
In: Chemistry
This is correct. Partially.
That is Ten inches of fresh fluffy snow.
It’s a combination of organization of molecules and the fact that water expands when freezing.
The fluffy flakes are able to stay spread out as they stack due to their shape. The molecules themselves are spread out as the freeze and crystallize. Each flake has plenty of ‘free space’. And then all the space in between each snow flake.
You ever play tetris and missed your mark and blocked your lowest open spot? Well snow is like that except there’s more than one block falling and they are all different shapes and only the wind has any say in where or how they land. As it melts the bonds that keep them in place are broken and the molecules are allowed to flow into the open spaces.
The resulting water has much less ‘free space’ between molecules
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