Finally something nice instead of just lockdown and homeschooling! Berliners tend to have a more objective relationship with snow and fear above all that it will lead to chaos on public transport. The current weather situation, on the other hand, promises Berlin children the purest adventure.
Until last weekend, the little ones never really experienced that it could snow in their city. The last winter in which the temperatures remained below freezing for months was 2012, when there was still snow in Berlin and Brandenburg at Easter. Children who are ten years or younger today and who do not grow up in a family that goes to the mountains for winter sports only know snow from a few fleeting cold days.
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Tobogganing, snowball fights and snowmen are the things that make winter an attraction for children. The other are observations that one would otherwise never be able to make. What does a snowflake look like? For a long time it was thought that they all have six corners, resemble six-pointed stars when the temperature is around zero degrees, and hexagons when it is cold. In 2009 it was found that ice crystals form only five points on copper. In any case, no two snowflakes look the same.
When children ask questions about snow, very few of us can answer out of our heads. Our parents and grandparents still knew about it, but we have lost our knowledge of snow and ice in many mild winters. This is another reason why caution is required when stepping on ice surfaces. For lakes to reliably freeze over, temperatures have to be below freezing for much longer than many would like.
Of large and small crystals
On the other hand, you can read a lot about snow with just a few clicks. For example, how the flakes form. At temperatures below zero, small ice crystals form in clouds that combine with crystallization nuclei, which are mostly dust particles. More water molecules attach to the ice crystals.
How big the flakes get depends on how many such frozen particles get caught in one another. A large flake can be up to an inch in diameter. When the crystals combine with water droplets at warmer temperatures around freezing point, moist, heavy snow is created.
Ice crystals are actually transparent. The many tiny crystals tilted in all directions reflect the light like millions of tiny mirrors. Reflections come in from all directions, so all the colors are superimposed, so the snow appears white. In the mountains, fresh snow can reflect sunlight up to 90 percent, so you shouldn’t go there in winter without sun cream and sunglasses.
As light as snow appears when it floats from the sky, it can become dangerously heavy, denting entire roofs and buckling masts. Its weight depends on the temperature in the cloud, in the air and on the ground. Dry powder snow, the way skiers love it, weighs 30 to 50 kilograms per cubic meter, wet fresh snow up to 200 kilograms and snow that has been lying on the ground for a long time can weigh as much as 500 kilograms per cubic meter.
[Der kollabierte Polarwirbel kann uns extreme Kälte bringen. Die Hintergründe können Abonnenten von T+ hier nachlesen: Polarwirbel kollabiert – Warum der Winter noch richtig kalt werden könnte]
The snow changes on the ground, the ice crystals take on a shape with the smallest possible surface. The fine tips and branches slowly disappear, making the snow thicker and heavier. It is called firn when it has thawed and re-frozen several times and has formed a solid crust on the surface. They say he’s screwed up. Due to the meltwater, which freezes again and again, this old snow becomes particularly dense and heavy. If it lies for several years, it can weigh up to 800 kilos per cubic meter.
It used to be cold longer
Researchers from Davos have measured snow avalanches, by the way, can reach speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour, which is the speed of an ICE at full speed. On the other hand, it is a myth that Inuit people supposedly have 40 different words for snow. In turn, the linguist Geoffrey Pullum from the University of Edinburgh tries to make humanity understand – with moderate success, because history persists. But who really has a lot of terms for snow, are the Scots – namely 421!
The cold weather will obviously remain with us for some time. Earlier, when there was usually snow and ice as early as November, this news would have caused eyes to roll in February, because at that point you were thoroughly fed up with the cold and lugging coal into the student dormitory with an outside toilet.
Today the snow can be a wonderful change – at least for people who have a well-heated apartment. And an incentive to drag the children out of the lockdown rigor more often. Hopefully everyone has snow pants, winter boots and anoraks in the right size, that wasn’t that important in recent years. And then let’s get out, if necessary sledding down icy paths on your bum, as children did last weekend in Volkspark Schöneberg. The opportunity is good!
