Wet Snow / Dry Snow

az2wp0sye65487

Am I going mad? Is there a difference? We always seem to get wet snow here in Ireland; which turns to a horrible slush once the 'big thaw' starts. All the roads and footpaths then end up soaked for days.

I've been to NYC a few times during the winter, and they seem to get a dry snow over there. All the streets are plowed; footpaths & streets are treated with salt/grit - but everywhere is DRY!

I've spent the past couple of hours clearing the front garden, and a walkway on the footpath in front of the house; but the place is soaking wet now - and I reckon if the temps drop again tonight the walkways i cleared could end up just as slippery as they were before!! :mad:

So anyway, is there a difference??

bbam

Have to say our 4 inches of snow here in Cavan is powdery fine dry snow, doesn't stick together even today after a slight thaw.. I cleared the steps and a little round the door and it was dry within 2 hours in the sunshine... Depends on local conditions I suppose, we're about 700ft above sea level in an open position..

Supercell

Its wet because its melting. I guess in New York its powery simply because its well below freezing. Problem is in Irleand unless you live high up in the mountains, more often than not we are at freezing or slightly above it hence nearly always get wet snow.

Asphyxia

Yes there is a difference dry snow doesn't stick together it's more of a powder than anything wet snow is slushier if that makes sense when you jump around in it I find it will dissolve faster.

doOh

bbam wrote: »

Have to say our 4 inches of snow here in Cavan is powdery fine dry snow, doesn't stick together even today after a slight thaw.. I cleared the steps and a little round the door and it was dry within 2 hours in the sunshine... Depends on local conditions I suppose, we're about 700ft above sea level in an open position..

High mountains in Ireland ? OMG i think i missed it O_o

-1 and below snow is dry, +1 and higher snow is wet, between that depends on condition (wind etc)

gothwalk

The NYC snow will be slushy when it's melting too. Thing is that for them, it's likely to be a very brief period at the end of winter, so it's only about a day of slush for twenty, thirty or more days of snow. They'll have had temperatures below freezing for much of that period, so the snow won't have melted.

Here, our temperatures are much more marginal, so we get two days of snow, a day of slush, then another day of snow, one of slush... and so on. Often enough it's slushing as it's falling.

So there's no difference in the snow, as such, just in the sustained temperatures.

az2wp0sye65487

Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I'm not sure I agree that it's down to temperature alone.

In NYC during winter they don't always have sub-zero temperatures, and we had a spell this past week where temps were nearly always in the minus figures, but still ended up with a load of slush.

Is there anything to do with air humidity involved?

snowstreams

it could be something to do with humidity too. I know that in Calgary they can get a dry chinook wind, that gives a high temperature of maybe 6-10c but has a low dew point of below 0c. So it melts the snow and it evaporates instantly. So the result is that you dont see melt water around.
Maybe NYC has a less extreme version of this?

bbam

doOh wrote: »

High mountains in Ireland ? OMG i think i missed it O_o

??

Su Campu

Henry Many Pepper wrote: »

Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I'm not sure I agree that it's down to temperature alone.

In NYC during winter they don't always have sub-zero temperatures, and we had a spell this past week where temps were nearly always in the minus figures, but still ended up with a load of slush.

Is there anything to do with air humidity involved?

Correct, it's to do with the wet bulb temerature. If that's above zero then melting will occur.

The wet bulb temperature lies about 30% of the way between the normal dry bulb temperature and dewpoint, nearer to the drybulb temperature. So taking the last few days before the thaw started - temperature and dewpoint were well below zero, hence no melting. During Friday both of these rose steadily above zero, therefore so did the wet bulb. Say the temp is +1C. No melting will occur until the dewpoint rises to around -2C, because at that point the wbt will be around zero. Any rise in dewpoint fom there, even to -1C, will mean melting.

That's the reason why it can still snow at +4C. If the dewpoint is low enough to keep the wbt below zero (so DP -8C or lower) no melting will occur. In NYC, cold Canadian winter airmasses can have dewpoints tens of degrees below zero, and that's why melting is difficult, and therefore conditions don't get that slushy.

thetonynator

Snow here was very dry, you couldn't even pick it up until yesterday, but yesterday and today its really really wet as it is thawing . . .

Pangea

Henry Many Pepper wrote: »

Am I going mad? Is there a difference? We always seem to get wet snow here in Ireland; which turns to a horrible slush once the 'big thaw' starts. All the roads and footpaths then end up soaked for days.

I've been to NYC a few times during the winter, and they seem to get a dry snow over there. All the streets are plowed; footpaths & streets are treated with salt/grit - but everywhere is DRY!

Your answer is in your question.
Of course we get dry snow here lol.
Of course its wet when it thaws and thats not even wet snow , that just thawing snow ,wet snow is when it really isnt cold enough for real snow and wet snow falls instead which doesnt really accumulate , reason it is dry in new york is because it hasnt thawed yet and they are better at plowing the roads and streets.
The past week was bone dry here with powder snow.

up for anything

For two days here in KK the boys couldn't build a decent snowman or make proper snow balls because the snow would stick together. Is that dry, powdery snow?