Entertainment For Lively Minds
"Too cold to snow"
Posted by Red Umpire on 29 November 2010 - 4:40pm.
Three times today I've been told that "It's too cold to snow" here in Liverpool.
I have little scientific knowledge and profess no understanding of meteorology whatsoever, but given the quantity of snow covering Scotland and Northern England, where the temperatures are at best perishingly cold, the idea that it can be "too cold to snow" is surely nonsense, isn't it?
Given so, why do people say it? Does it have any basis in fact? Are other seemingly ridiculous examples of weather lore ("if it rains on St Swithin's day it will rain for the next 40 days") in any way based on truths?
- More from Red Umpire.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Sort of true
Colder air can't hold as much moisture as warmer air can, so the chances of snow are reduced if it's really cold (which means more than about -10 degrees).
It does, however, still snow at the Poles.
trust me....
.... it snows at the Scots too !
High Pressure over UK
In winter normally brings blue skies and colder weather. Here in Canada it is often down to -20 and -30 and, yes, it does snow at those temperatures.
It sounds like..
..that theory emerged from the same school as 'hot drinks cool you down'. I think it's got more to do with geography : that the weather here in the North West just sucks all round. It's cloudy and / or wet most of Spring and Summer and cloudy and / or wet and cold for most of Autumn and Winter. Bill Bryson remarked on the weather up here when writing about living in Skipton - that those endless white skies and shadowless days made him feel like he was living inside Tupperware. Bah..
Hot drinks can make you feel less hot on a scorching day
Whether you feel hot or cold is to do with your body's core temperature compared to the temperature around you.
This is why someone with a fever feels freezing cold on a normal day and why you shouldn't let them, especially kids, wrap up in the duvet. You need to reduce their core temperature.
It's also why people in snowdrifts feel warm just before they're about to die of hyperthermia.
By constrast, if you're really suffering with the heat on a hot day, raising your core temperature by drinking a nice cuppa-tea can help.
Drinking ice-cold drinks only helps temporarily unless you drink them constantly - and they're actually more of a help to keep you hydrated rather than to cool you down. The cooler you make your core temperature with cold drinks, the hotter the day will feel. Although cold Guiness always helps 'cause the more you have the less you care about the heat :)
All of these sayings/phrases/pearls-of-wisdom have a basis in fact. Unfortunately, these days, especially with the Internet, they're taken at face value rather than considering their underlying basis.
Just my twopenneth. - Twopenny bits, pronounced Tuppeny....I'll explain them some other time :)
As Dai says..
Anticyclonic systems which, in winter, tend to be associated with cold NE airflows also tend to give clear skies.
At the moment, we've got funny airflows because the jetstream's doing odd things so there's cold airflows and also frontal systems carying snow.
I've been in The Alps at temperatures of -25°C, trying to find my way back in crap visibility when it's been absolutely hoofing it down and some wag always pipes up with "I'd have thought it was too cold for snow"
It's a pity
That we don't get more snow in our part of the world. I'd like just enough to fall overnight to make the M27 impassable.
Anecdotal evidence
Driving up from the Lakes to Edinburgh yesterday we went from cold and crisp in the central lakes to cloudy and snowy in Scotland. The Temperature rose from -5°C in Cumbria to 0°C where the snow was falling.
My understanding is that snow tends to result from relatively warm (everything's relative) moist air moving into areas of colder air. Moisture condenses, freezes and falls as snow.
that's it.
except that the moisture doesn't freeze - it doesn't melt. warmer rises over colder air or colder air forces itself under warmer air. point is that as the moist air rises so the water vapour condenses, forms ice crystals and falls. Where the temperature was 0 the air was more humid so precipation was more likely. the air at -5 was much drier.
the is a sort of logic to the its too cold to snow OWT. The colder air gets the less mositure it can hold. And, logically, the less evaporation there will be as a cold air mass passes over water. In theory snow can fall at any temperature all the way down to just above absolute zero. Its just less likely because that air will hold very little moisture.
I am puzzled as well
Mentioned something along these lines on radio Devon-that the flakes cannot form. I got totally lost but let's assume it's something to do with the air a lot higher up ie perhaps the height where the clouds are ? I would love to know !
Ah. Well, there you go, see.
If you'm daft enuff to b'lieve anythin' you 'ears on Radio D'em, you ought to stay at 'ome an' not go shoppin', 'case you're sold a dud like.
Too cold to snow
I don't get
Too drunk to fuck - on t'other hand...
I don't about you
as for me, the mind is keen but the body...
sorry..is that too confessional?
As usual
Will.i.am (Shakespeare) has the answer
'alcohol increaseth the desire yet taketh away the performance'
Snow in Japanese is
Yuki. Watched a great TV documentary about Ukichiro Nakaya, whose brilliant research led him to create the first artificial snowflake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukichiro_Nakaya
They were wrong
It's still bloody freezing and it snowed last night.
"Too cold for Snow" - absolutely correct
This saying has got nothing to do with whether there is any temperature below which its scientifically impossible to snow.
It has to do with people's experience of snow in England over many generations.
I've lived (and been to school) as far south as St.Ives in Cornwall and as far north as Worksop in Nottinghamshire and Newcastle Upon Tyne. My experience of cold weather in England has been consistent up and down the country...
Generally speaking, if its perishing cold in England, there probably isn't much, if any, cloud cover. If there's no cloud cover, it won't snow.
I live in Bournemouth now and we've woken up to about a foot of snow this morning.
Now that it's snowed heavily and there's more on the way, we can see that the sky is covered with thick white cloud. Even though it's snowing, that thick cloud results in the temperature on the ground being slightly higher than yesterday when there was no cloud cover.
If you'd been outside here yesterday evening, you would have noticed that it was nowhere near as cold leading up to the snow, as the snow clouds began to cover the sky, as it was during the day. In fact, as an honourary Northener living in the South, it's positively toasty here today compared to yesterday even though it's completely white here.
If you spend enough winters getting around on foot, instead of driving everywhere or being sat indoors on a computer, you can feel when there's been that slight rise in temperature which indicates that the snow clouds are starting to cover the sky. This is especially noticeable if it's been perishing cold with no snow for several days.
Until you notice that rise in ground temperature, in England at least, it'll be "too cold for snow".
I hope my explanation of this (nowadays) misunderstood phrase has been straight-forward.
BJ.
Living in Glasgow most of my life...
I can tell you that, contrary to popularly held perceptions, we actually get less snow than other parts of the UK. Think it's something to do with the Gulf Stream.
Manys the time as a kid we'd see English folk gamboling in a snowy wonderland on TV with no school to go to when we had nowt but grey and rainy and double maths.
Making up for it this week though. Never seen snow as heavy and as persistent as in Glasgow ever. Kyboshed up my proposed trip to the Christmas Markets in Freiburg tomorrow.
Bugger....
Historic lack of snow in Glasgow
Massive blames Frankie Boyle
Frankies ears must be burning....
Aa a prelude to the rest of him (metaphorically speaking of course...)
Sayings about the cold
My Mum used to say 'It's cold enough for a walking stick'....I never had any idea why this logic should prevail, or where it came from!! Maybe she was just mad....
Q. Who's got 12 inches?
A. ME!!!