How Does Snow Happens?

One of the interesting phenomena in winter is snow. Snow is unique because the ice crystals, which
are only soft and white like cotton, are present naturally in the land of the four seasons or in very
high places such as the Peak of Mount Jarawijaya in Papua.

How the process of occurrence of snowfall? To answer that, we can start the process of occurrence of snow.
Starting from water vapor that gather in Earth’s atmosphere, the water vapor cools to the point of
condensation (i.e. the temperature at which the gas turns into liquid or solid forms), then rotate to form
clouds. At the beginning of the formation of clouds, its mass is much smaller than the mass of the air so that
the clouds float in the air just like wooden beams which floats on the surface of the water. However, after the
steam collection continues to grow and merge into the cloud, its mass also increases, resulting in a when air
was not able to hold him again. The clouds broke and the water particles ever fallen to Earth.

Water particles that fall it was pure water (not doped by other particles). Pure water does not freeze in
temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius, because at the temperature of liquid phase changes to solid. To make pure
water freezing temperature required is lower than 0 degrees Celsius. This also happens when we menjerang
water, water evaporates when the temperature above 100 degrees Celsius because at 100 degrees Celsius is
the change of phase from liquid to vapor. To speed up the change of the phase of a substance, usually added
special substances, for example, salt is used to accelerate the phase of melting ice to water.

Usually the air temperature just below the clouds is below 0 degrees Celsius (air temperature depending on
the height above sea level). But, the low temperature alone is not enough to create snow. When particles of
such pure water in contact with air, then the pure water of distortion by other particles. There are certain
particles that function accelerates the freezing phase, so that pure water is rapidly becoming the ice crystals.

Pollutant particles involved in this process is called nukleator, in addition to functioning as the freezing phase
Accelerator, also the adhesive antaruap water. So the water particles (which are not pure anymore) joined
together with other water particles to form larger crystals. If the air temperature is not to melt the ice crystals,
ice crystals falling to the ground. And here’s the snow! If not, the ice crystals melt and get to the soil in the
form of rain water.

In many cases in the world, the process of the decline of the rain always starts with the snow some when she
fell from the clouds, but then melted away when crossing the hot air. Sometimes, if the temperature is very
low, the ice crystals can form small balls of ice and sleet. Bandung city included relatively frequently
experience hail. So, this is why the snow was very hard down naturally in the tropical regions that have
relatively high air temperatures than areas that are currently experiencing winter.

Snow Crystal has a unique structure, no snow crystals that have the same shape in this world as our
fingerprints. Imagine, the snow‘s been coming down since the Earth was created up to now, and none of the
snow has the same crystal structure!

The uniqueness of the snow is white in colour. If it’s snowing, the expanse of the Earth as white, clean, and
seemed to be glowing. This is due to the Crystal structure of the snow allows snow to reflect all the colors to all
directions in the same amount, then came the white color. The same phenomenon can also be seen when we
see white sand, salt chunk, chunks of sugar, mist, cloud, and white paint.

In addition, the decline in snow provide warmth. This can be understood from the concept of the effective
temperature. Effective temperature is the temperature felt by our skin, is influenced by three physical
quantities: the measured temperature (by the thermometer), the speed of movement of the air, and the air
humidity. Effective temperature is typically used to determine the “comfort zone“. On the beach, the
measured temperature can be high, but due to the high winds we still feel comfortable. By the time the snow
fell heavy, humidity rises and this influenced the effective temperature so on one condition we feel warm