The best weather conditions for snow

[e2 0]

Hiya.

 

I'm interested to know more about what the best weather conditions for the best snow might be. Anyone care to shed any light on this?

 

I know the kind of snow conditions I like, just not sure what the weather and temps are up to when that lot falls.

[mattlucas 0]

I think it has to be cold

but sometimes it snow when it isn't so cold

[sava 0]

Clouds also increase the likelihood of snow...

[mattlucas 0]

SHIT!!!!!!!!

I knew I forgot something

[soubriquet 0]

That's quite a gnarly question, e2.

 

You need a warm air mass over the ocean, to evaporate lots of moisture. Then you need to cool it. Lifting it is the easiest way, so you can push it up a mountain, or up the slope of a cold air mass (a cold front). Turning all that water into ice is going to release a lot of heat, so if it snows now, it will from a warm cloud, and I'd guess the snow would be wet. My guess is that this is the normal situation in Japan.

 

What you really need to do is to continue to cool that air mass below the temperature at which all the vapour has frozen, or drop it through a layer of cold air, then you've got dry powder.

 

Or something like that. Reading the above, I'd say given the presence of vapour, it depends on the temperature and behaviour of the cold air part of the system.

 

A layer of clouds acts as an insulating blanket too.

 

I think that big flakes = warm snow and small flakes = cold snow, but I may be wrong. I'd really like to hear anyone's observations on this.

[2pints-mate 0]

Interesting answer soubriquet.

 

So how is the snow like generally up in the Famous Nisekoland then?

[soubriquet 0]

Going from the general to the specific is a dangerous thing. My guess is you need a big cold airmass to make good powder, and Hokkaido has lots of cold. Sounds good to me.