FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — You’ve probably heard meteorologists say, “we’re looking for a few inches of the white stuff” when forecasting winter storms.
But do you know why snow appears white?
Snow in its most basic form is frozen water. Water, with no impurities, is clear or translucent. Scientifically speaking, translucent means the light photons do not pass through the material directly in a path. Instead, the material’s particles change the light’s direction.
(Stay with me here, I know you feel like you’re back in a high school science class.)
The distances between some atoms in the molecular structure of ice are close to the height of light wavelengths, causing the light photons to interact with the structures. The bottom line, the light photon’s path is altered making it exit the ice in a different direction than it entered the ice.
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Remember, snow is made up of a bunch of separate ice crystals arranged together. When a light photon enters a layer of snow, it goes through an ice crystal on the top, which changes its direction slightly, sending it to a new ice crystal, over, and over again. This bouncing of light refracts all around the snowpack, resulting in all the colors of the light spectrum refracting back out to the naked eye.
What appears is the color that all frequencies make when combined, white. Despite this not being the color that can be seen when looking at individual ice crystals, which usually have hues of blue or pink depending on how the sun is hitting it, or if it’s under a shadow. Ice crystals can also appear red if the water is full of algae before it freezes.
Arizona Weather
Arizona has seen its fair share of severe weather. Here is a compilation of videos from various storms across the Grand Canyon state.
