How is snow made? An atmospheric scientist describes the journey of frozen ice crystals from clouds to the ground
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. How is snow made? – Tenley, age 7, Rockford, Michigan The thought of snow can conjure up images of powdery slopes, days out of school or hours of shoveling. For millions of people, it’s an inevitable part of life – but you may rarely stop to think about what made the snow. As a professor of atmospheric and planetary sciences, I’ve studied how ice crystals floating in the sky become the snow that coats the ground. It all starts in the clouds. Clouds form when air near the Earth’s surface rises. This happens when sunlight warms the ground and the air closest to it, just like the Sun can warm your face on a cold winter day. As the slightly warmer air rises, it cools – and the water vapor in that rising air condenses to form liq...