Can it really be too cold to snow?

With the temperature dropping again this week but no snow forecast, we wonder: can it head towards freezing or below but not trigger a whiteout?

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? Best Answer

It actually can get to be too cold to snow.

The atmosphere’s ability to retain moisture ( what we know as relative humidity) changes with the lowering of the temperature. If you notice your coldest days/nights, they are usually cloudless or have clouds extremely high in the stratosphere. When the air is super cold, there is no way for moisture droplets to condense, because there isnt enough moisture TO condense

When you are witnessing a snow event, you often times will see the temperature RISE, and the best snow events usually have a temperature that is between 25-28 deg Farenheit when they start, and often times the temp at the surface will pop just above freezing, and it still be snowing.

You will see that lower temperature limits for snow are somewhere around 10-15 Deg F.

Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (about 10 μm in diameter) freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures lower than −18 °C (0 °F), because to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement similar to that in an ice lattice; then the droplet freezes around this “nucleus.” Experiments show that this “homogeneous” nucleation of cloud droplets only occurs at temperatures lower than −35 °C (−31 °F).Once a droplet has frozen, it grows in the supersaturated environment, which is one where air is saturated with respect to ice when the temperature is below the freezing point. The droplet then grows by diffusion of water molecules in the air (vapor) onto the ice crystal surface where they are collected.. The more water vapor there is available to the cloud, and the stronger the updrafts that cause this water vapor to condense into cloud water or ice particles, the more likely it is that snow will form within the cloud.AND THATS WHY:-a cold, cloudy day with no snow indicates that there is either not enough water vapor available to the cloud, or that the rising motion creating the cloud is not enough to cause snow (or both). (Even at temperatures as low as -40 degrees F, tiny cloud water droplets remain liquid, until they become attached to an ice particle, and then they freeze.)

Source(s):
web

As many have said no it can’t be too cold to snow until you get to way below the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth. However when it is very cold [eg at the poles] the snow tends to be very light – but of course it stays for ever so there seems to be a lot.

The reason why people in UK say it is too cold to snow is that snow is caused by a depression meeting very cold air.as it arrives where you are ther air temperature rises [because the deptression is a rotating swirl of warmer air] and then the snow falls so the observer associates the warmer air temperature with snowing. Hence the view forms that if it is really cold it can’t snow but as it gets warmer it can.

It is the the amount of moisture retained in the clouds that affects how much pecipiation and how snow falls. Temperature is a variable that affects how moisture condenses. There is a balancing act between the amount of moisture and temperature that has to be maintained for snow formation. It can be too cold to snow if there is not enough moisture to condense but that doesn’t mean snow can’t fall at temperature below -15 deg C.

I cannot be too cold to snow. The temperature affects the humidity in the air and the chance of precipitation. At absolute zero, there is no chance to snow but that is only possible in a VERY expensive labaratory and does not occur in nature.

So it CAN snow at any temperature, but the colder it is there is less of a chance of precipitation.

Yes
Believe it or not it has to be warm to snow

Snow forms when the atmospheric temperature is at or below freezing (0 degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit) and there is a minimum amount of moisture in the air. If the ground temperature is at or below freezing, of course the snow will reach the ground.
However, the snow can still reach the ground when the ground temperature is above freezing if the conditions are just right. In this case, snowflakes will begin to melt as they reach this warmer temperature layer; the melting creates evaporative cooling which cools the air immediately around the snow flake.This cooling retards melting. As a general rule, though, snow will not form if the ground temperature is 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit).

Source(s):
http://nsidc.org/snow/faq.html

I agree that people say ‘It’s too cold too snow’ but that’s an old wives tale, admittedly there is a lot of snow at the poles where it doesn’t snow that often as other answers have said. Part of the reason they have an accumulation of snow is that it doesn’t melt away every year.

But what about places like Moscow or Chicago? The temperature regularly plummets to below freezing and they get a lot of snow each winter.

Source(s):
Watching of television documentaries

No it can’t be to cold to snow. Even if it’s -70 degrees Celsius and there are no clouds it can still snow because the tiny water droplets in the air freeze, producing snow. There is never 0% humidity so there will always be some water droplets in the air which are able to freeze.
Also all precipitation starts of as ice in the upper atmosphere, the only reason it wouldn’t snow at ground level is that it is too warm. Therefore if the temperature is cold enough all the way down to ground level, regardless of how cold this is, then it will snow.

One phrase that is heard from time to time is that, “it is too cold to snow today”. In actuality, earth’s troposphere is not too cold to snow but rather it is “too dynamically stable to snow”. Dynamic stability may be present due to low-level cold air advection, a lack of upper level divergence, and/or a lack of low level convergence. Also, if dynamic lifting does occur it may not produce precipitation that reaches the surface due to low relative humidity values in the lower troposphere.

The ingredients for snow are: (1) a temperature profile that allows snow to reach the surface, (2) saturated air, and (3) enough lifting of that saturated air to allow snow to develop aloft and fall to reach the surface. In a situation when it is said “it is too cold to snow” there is in reality not enough lifting of air that causes snow to reach the surface.

The phrase “it is too cold to snow today” probably originated as a misapplication of the relationship between temperature and the maximum amount of water vapour that can be in the air. When temperature decreases, the maximum capacity of watervapourr that can be in the air decreases. Therefore, the colder it gets the less watervapourr there will be in the air.

Even at very cold surface temperatures significant snowfall can occur because: (1) intense lifting can produce significant precipitation even at a very low temperature, (2) the temperature aloft can be much warmer than the temperature at the surface. The relatively warmer air aloft can have a larger moisture content than air in the PBL, (3) Moisture advection can continue to bring a renewed supply of moisture into a region where lifting is occurring, (4) Even at very cold temperatures the air always has a capacity to have some watervapourr.

If the air cools to truly frigid Arctic temperatures such as -40 C and below then the moisture capacity of the air will be so low that likely not much snow can occur. Only at these extremely low temperatures is the phrase “it is too cold to snow” fairly valid.

At the temperature of absolute zero ( 0 K, -273 C, -459 F) all air including water vapour condenses and loses all molecular energy. The temperature can not cool below absolute zero.

The ultimate weather education website: http://www.theweatherprediction.com/

Source(s):
yahoo

Anyone who’s lived in a country where it snows in winter will recognise the feeling behind this popular piece of folk meteorology: there are days when the cold is so intense, you have the sense that even the snow is too frozen to fall. “It’s been trying to snow all day,” people will say, “but it’s just too cold.” Professional meteorologists, however, say that nowhere on Earth can ever be literally too cold for snow; it can and does snow at extremely low temperatures. But it is true that snow is less common and less plentiful once ground level air temperatures get much below zero (the figure given varies), mainly because of a lack of water vapour in the cold air. Even then, signifi cant snowfall can occur under certain circumstances, such as up a mountain, or over a source of heat or body of water. Snow is certainly not unknown, for instance, at the frozen Poles. Only at absolute zero (–459oF or –273oC), say the experts, would snow become impossible. Along with everything else.

The ingredients for snow (falling from sky) are:
1) cold temperature
2) saturated moisture in air
3) enough lifting of that saturated air to allow snow to form in the high altitude

If the air is cooler than -40 C and below, then the moisture capacity of the air will be so low that likely not much snow can occur. Only at these extremely low temperatures is the phrase “it is too cold to snow” fairly valid.

In other words, we should say “too dry to snow” rather than “too cold to snow”.

As many people have said, if it gets too cold then the air cannot contain enough moisture for it to condense and precipitate.

Also for the many people referencing Antarctic/Artic, while there is a lot of snow there, it doesn’t snow very often and is technically one of the driest deserts on the planet.Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres per annum.

The phrase “it is too cold to snow today” probably originated as a misapplication of the relationship between temperature and the maximum amount of water vapor that can be in the air. When temperature decreases, the maximum capacity of water vapor that can be in the air decreases. Therefore, the colder it gets the less water vapor there will be in the air.

At the temperature of absolute zero ( 0 K, -273 C, -459 F) all air including water vapor condenses and loses all molecular energy. The temperature can not cool below absolute zero.

In simplistic terms it has to rain before it can snow. The rain droplets then fall through very cold air turing the droplets into snowflakes. There is a set of conditions that must prevail for this to occur. In the south of the UK. it is common that we will get rain that will fall to ground and not encounter colder air to cause snowflakes. As air from sea / ground level rises it becomes colder. Usually the lowering of temperature causes water particles to ‘come out of solution’ in the air (hence we get clouds which are themselves a manifestation of water particles suspended in air) and if the cooling continues more water particles come out of suspension, these liberated water particlesthen join up and become large enough to fall to ground. We know this as rainfall. With snow, there has to be a situation where

No it cannot be too cold to snow! There may be loads of snow at the Poles however it rarely snows there, while the theory about moisture holds too be largely correct in these areas it CAN actually snow there. If you take Canada, Alaska and Greenland etc. where in winter temperatures regularly reach -20 degrees C it snows enough to have plenty of fresh snow for winter sports.
In response to the “on the coldest nights there are no clouds because there’s no moisture” while the lower temperatures might play a small part in clouds not forming, it is actually the lack of cloud cover that means the temperatures dip.
And finally to the people saying it has to be “warm” to snow, that is also NOT true, there merely has to be a rise in temperature for it to snow. So it could be at -35 and rise to -30 and then snow!

Yes. At 273 degrees Celsius, not only is it too cold to snow, but all movement, right down to an atomic level stops. This temperature is known as “absolute zero”.
Other than that, no. Provided the conditions are moist enough in the upper atmosphere, precipitation can occur, and below freezing, this will usually be in the form of snow.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Zero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow

The ‘too cold to snow’ assertion is indeed a bit of a red herring, but there is an impression of this being the case. This is because snow is often formed on the arrival of a cold front (cold air pushes up the warmer air that it undermines as it progresses across the land) The moist warm air is, therefore, pushed up to the icing level where the snow forms. So, the impression is (and it is often measurably true too) that snow arrives in warmer air than that which follows it – if you get my drift!!

Source(s):
Well known meteorolical phenomena.

The only temperature that is cold enough for it not to snow is absolute zero (-273oC or -459oF). It isn’t possible to get any colder on earth. Up to this temperature it is technicaly possible for it to snow, however there is restricted lift and water vapour in the air at low tempertures to allow the snow to fall. So the answer I think woud be yes, it can be too cold to snow, but the temperature would have to be a hell of a lot lower than the lowest recorded temperature on earth (-89.2oC or -129oF).

there is one Temperature too cold to snow and that is zero or -273 degrees c (-459 f), it is impossible the temperature on earth could go any lower or else the moisture in the air would most likely freeze and we would be dead because of both lack of heat and also no water to drink. if we were still alive to see this temperature then we would know that the temp would be soo cold that instead of snow, we would either get nothing because the clouds would not be able to form because of lack of accual water or the snow would just compress and become ice. so the answer would be yes there would be a 1% that it would be soo cold that it would be forced to not snow but it would have to be way colder than your average freezing day. also to address your comment directly about this week, we will most likely not experience it being -273c outside fortunately!!!

Source(s):
science textbooks

No, it can’t get to cold for snow.
I think that’s a fairy tale ‘told’ in mainly ‘snow less’ countries.

I lived in Germany for over 20 years and we had snow there at 20 C – to 28 C – !!
I lived in Iceland for 10 years and we had over 30 C – !!
I went to Austria on vacation and we had 24C – !!
I went to Artica and we had 41C-!!
I went to Russia and we had even 47C -!!

It snowed at each temperature!
It was beautiful as the snow flakes seem to be like little stars.
And the snow settled very well!!

Source(s):
Own experience

No, it cannot be too cold to snow, however there are factors that would prevent it snowing!

Snow is just the same as rain in essence, it is water, and, if a cloud of water vapour condenses because it meets colder air than the vapour of the cloud it will condense and fall as water droplets, which, if the air is cold enough will turn to snow or ice crystals. If, the vapour that forms the cloud is colder than the surounding air then it will remain as vapour and it will not snow or rain!

There are places in the Arctic, such as Barrow Point in Alaska where because of the prevailing conditions it rarely snows even though it is below zero.

The same is true in Deserts, often I have witnessed massive cloud formations, almost blotting out the sun, but it doesn’t rain, because the air is warmer than the vapour in the clouds!

Notice how it always seems steamier in the Bathroom in Winter?

Who cares anyway?

John

This could be a very technical discussion, but I will try and keep it simple. The answer to the question of can it be too cold to snow is no, it can’t be too cold to snow, but is gets increasingly difficult the colder it gets.

First, an important concept. Warm air can contain more water vapor than colder air. That is to say, there is more water vapor present for producing precipitation in warm air than in cold air. When any air mass reaches the point where it can’t contain any more vapor, it becomes saturated (also called the dew point). When the dew point is reached condensation occurs, clouds form, and the more droplets that form, the greater the chance of them colliding and forming bigger drops. When they get big enough, they fall to the ground as precipitation and if the air is cold enough, they fall as snow. But when the air is really cold, it can’t absorb as much water vapor and therefore has less precipitable content for making snow.

I will try and make it more simple. It works like this: the higher the temperature, the more the air can contain water. For example, at 15 C, a cubic meter can contain up to 13 grams water. But at 0 C, it is down to only 5 grams. That is the absolute moisture. But in both cases, the relative humidity is 100 percent. In both cases, if the same parcel of air is further cooled down, it must condense and, eventually form precipitation of rain or snow.

Over the poles, there is much less moisture in the air than over the equator. But if the temperature sinks below what is called the dew point temperature, it may rain or snow. But over the poles, there will be much less snow, of course.

The answer then is: it is never too cold to snow, only that when it is very cold, there isn’t much snow to come down.

The colder it gets the less likely is a snow storm. I had the pleasure to visit Oymyakon in Central Siberia, the coldest inhabited place on earth. The record low was -72C but when I was there only -56C. Certainly there is snow there but mainly it falls at the beginning and end of the cold season. What does form constantly is frost – moisture in the air that freezes into minute ice particles which then fall to the ground or settle on trees. No good for snowballs as it just crumbles like sand. This leaves the air totally dry causing all sorts of strange effects such as static electricity shocks when touching anything, lighting flashes on film, and a crackly tingle when undressing.

Yes, it can certainly snow at any temperature but it needs a rapid cooling of relatively warm moist air, usually by a collision with a colder front, to do this. This event becomes rare once the general temperature drops.

It can snow below freexing temp

just go to the north and south poles how can people be so dumb as to think that snow cannot be formed below -0 when they know (all you have to do is watch discovery channel) that it snows in the most extreme temp… Siberia – 45 deg Cen

This is like trying to form an argument around whether the earth is flat or round because your great grand mother said its too cold too snow, one of those old wives tales that simply doesnt stand true and maybe because her granmother told her so she now tells you.

But you know now that it can snow even below -50 degrees C so why start this dumb post when people should know these things, just ask Santa in a couple hundred days he will agree!

I think this is a British idea – the prevailing winds and precipitation come from the warm ocean, courtesy of the Atlantic Conveyer. So we tend to get lots of snow when it is just cold enough for this to come down as snow rather than rain. Colder temperatures tend to result from high pressure and air moving from mainland europe. Hence we rarely get snowfall when temperatures fall to continental levels – too cold to snow.

The answer to the question of can it be too cold to snow is no, it can’t be too cold to snow, but is gets increasingly difficult the colder it gets.

First, an important concept. Warm air can contain more water vapour than colder air. That is to say, there is more water vapour present for producing precipitation in warm air than in cold air. When any air mass reaches the point where it can’t contain any more vapour, it becomes saturated (also called the dew point). When the dew point is reached condensation occurs, clouds form, and the more droplets that form, the greater the chance of them colliding and forming bigger drops. When they get big enough, they fall to the ground as precipitation and if the air is cold enough, they fall as snow. But when the air is really cold, it can’t absorb as much water vapour and therefore has less precipitatable content for making snow.

As the air gets colder there is less water vapour present. The less water vapour in the air, the less precipitation that can be produced. When it is 32°F (0°C) there is a lot more water vapour present than at 0°F (-18°C), so a lot of snow can be produced and the snowflakes are usually bigger. When the air gets really cold, there really isn’t enough water vapour in the air to get a whole lot of precipitable accumulations in a short amount of time and the snowflakes decrease in size. Therefore, as it gets colder it takes much longer for there snow to accumulate on the ground. And when it’s really cold, say below -40°F very little precipitation can be produced. Ice crystals can form, but they are extremely small.

There are a couple other reason why it’s hard for snow to form in really cold temperatures. One of them being, there is less evaporation taking place. For this reason, cold air is usually much drier than its dew point, unless you happen to live next to a large body of water that hasn’t frozen over. The drier the air, the colder it has to get to reach its dew point and ultimately before condensation will occur.

The other reason snow has a hard time forming in really cold temperatures is that the atmosphere is usually a lot more stable. It’s hard to get really cold air to rise and expand so that the little amount of water vapour will condense and form snow. There are exceptions (there always are!). One of them being a mountain which can force the air upwards causing expansive cooling at which point the air will achieve its dew point. Another being a warm air mass moving over top of a very cold air mass.

So putting this all together, snow can form at any temperature provided the right conditions exist, but it has an increasingly difficult time forming in really cold air because there is less water vapour present. Right around freezing is where you will see the most snow. This is because the air can contain the most moisture yet still be cold enough to freeze. Once it drops below -20°F, your chances of snow are virtually nil (but still possible). Ironically, when temperatures are less than -40°F, snow can form without ice nuclei. However, these ice crystals are extremely small and accumulations are virtually unnoticeable.

Source(s):
http://www.weatherimagery.com/blog/too-c…

In order for it to snow, there must be water vapor in the air. In order for the air to soak up water vapor it need heat (2200 kJ/kg of heat to get water to turn into vapor) If it is too cold, the air cannot hold much water vapor and thus it will not snow.

Most of Antarctica is considered a desert because it gets less than 10 in of precipitation per year and this is because it is so cold. There are mile thick glaciers because what snow does come down never melts.

The colder it is, the less moisture the air can contain. But it never goes to zero moisture. What is important to remember is that, to form precipitation, the air must rise and cool down by the adiabatic effect. It is only then that condensation increases to the point that it comes down as rain or snow.

But the colder it is, the less moisture there is and the less dense precipitations are. If you go to the extremes, like at the poles, those are regions of high pressure, because cold air sinks. In a high pressure, the air warms up by the same adiabatic effect and there is no precipitation. That’s why both poles are actually deserts with very little precipitations. But it can and does snow there, as you were told above.

Snowing does not cause the warmth, the relative warmth causes the snow.

During very cold weather the capacity of the air to contain moisture is greatly reduced. What water vapor remains is deposited as frost. At the same time, evaporation is reduced and therefore air humidity remains low. In these conditions snow cannot form.

Warmer air can hold more moisture before saturation point is reached and the water vapor begins to condense out. So when warmer air moves into cooler areas, not only do we feel the increase in temperature, but the excess vapor precipitates as snow.

Source(s):
www.ehow.com

“Too cold to snow” is an old and fallacious saying in absolute terms. It is NEVER too cold to snow.
However the saying originates from the fact that we in the UK usually have our cold weather from the Continent and comes about when an area of High Pressure stays over Scandinavia. High Pressure has air moving in a clockwise direction. This has the effect of pulling in bitterly cold air from the North East or the East but air from the Continent is usually dry as it is passing over a land mass rather than the sea. As a result we get the cold but no snow and hence the saying.

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