Snowflakes Keep Fallin' on my Head

Hello all!

Snow is finally being predicted for the Plymouth State area!! Now the big question.. "Will classes be cancelled??!!" The answer my friends is no, not very likely. I am sitting here at 11:30 at night hoping the same thing, but after looking at the models, the odds just do not look good. Meteorologists are predicting about 1-3in. and sadly, I have to agree with them.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to inform those that may not know about the liquid to snow equivalent ratio. This will help all of you amateur meteorologists (such as myself) out there to predict snowfall amounts.

So Basically, on average the liquid to snow ratio is about 10:1. This means that if 10inches of snow falls, it will melt into 1 inch of actual liquid. So if a weatherman is saying 2.4 inches of precipitation is possible, and that precipitation just happens to be snow, you can expect about two ft. or so coming your way!! Although, if you would like to get more technical about all this (and I know you do), sometimes you may have to take into account the properties of the actual snowflakes and the surrounding environment. Below are brief explanations and ratios of what I mean by this...

Wet Snow/Above Freezing Temp: Wet snow can be about 50% ice and 50% liquid, it is a little more dense than the average snowflake. This mixed with an above freezing ground is what causes snowfall with no accumulation.

Wet Snow/Freezing Temps: (Properties of snow same as above) Only this time with the freezing ground temperatures, snow can accumulate. However, since the snow has a higher liquid content, the ratio is smaller.. 5:1

Dry Snow: This property of snow has no liquid to it whatsoever. It is purely a snowflake of ice crystals. This type of snow is much less dense than the above snowflakes. With this type of snow occurring, the surrounding ground temperatures will definitely be below freezing. The type of snowfall events are usually the small, heavy-falling snow showers. This boosts the ratio up to more than 10:1.. in extreme cases (such as recent events in Washington and Baltimore), the ratio's could be 20:1 or even 30:1! Unfortunately for the kids, dry snow is not very sticky, so snowballs are not exactly an option :(

I hope this was informative to you all.. for more information visit www.theweatherprediction.com ..Happy Forecasting!!