It Is Snowing! What Snow Really Is

Eon has seen snow on TV plenty of times. But in this clip, something new happens: the snow is right there in real life, falling out of the sky for him to catch. "I saw snow in TV," he says, "but now it's in real life."

That is a big moment. Watching something on a screen is one thing. Holding it in your own hand is another.

What is snow?

Snow is just water that has frozen into tiny ice crystals. It forms way up high inside cold clouds. When the air up there is cold enough, the water freezes into little crystals, and those crystals stick together into the soft white flakes we call snow. The flakes are so light that they do not fall fast like rain. They float down slowly and quietly.

So snow is not a different thing from water at all. It is water wearing a winter costume.

Watching a flake melt

In the clip, Eon does a little experiment without even calling it one. He drops a piece of snow and wonders what will happen. His guess: "It's going to turn into water." That is exactly right.

Snow melts when it gets warmer than freezing. The warmth gives the frozen crystals enough energy to loosen up and turn back into liquid water. And as Eon notices, it does not happen all at once. "It will melt slowly," he says. "Eventually it will become water."

That patience is good science. Melting takes a little time, because the snow has to soak up warmth from the air, your hand, or the ground before each crystal can change back into a drop.

So snow has a whole little journey: water freezes into snow up in the clouds, the flakes drift down to the ground, and when things warm up, the snow melts back into water again. The same water, changing shape over and over.

Try it

Next time it snows, catch a few flakes on a dark glove or a cold plate and look closely. Can you see the tiny crystal shapes before they melt? Then hold one flake in your warm hand and count how long it takes to turn into a drop of water. Does a big clump melt faster or slower than a single flake? You are doing exactly what Eon did: watching frozen water become liquid water, right in front of you.