While you might not have awinter wonderlandon your workforce just yet , snow is sure to start falling shortly as we get closer to the terminal of December . And with that comes a somewhat important question : Why issnow , which is so quiet when it ’s falling out of the sky , so loud on the reason , squeaking , creaking , and crunching under our boots ?
The reason , as it turns out , is scientific discipline . Snow is made up of ice crystals . While ice is a solid , it actually has a thin ( as in , a few nanometers)quasi - liquid stratum ( QLL)on its surface . Michael Faraday , better have sex for his piece of work on magnetism and electrochemistry , first suggest this idea in the 1850s . While scientists have confirmed it since then , the origins and many of the characteristics of the QLL are unclear .
One matter we do know , though , is that thethicknessof the QLL depends on temperature . When snow is warm , the QLL around all those ice crystals is soft . When you step on the snow , you compact the lechatelierite , but the liquid allows them to quietly slew past each other . When snow is colder and the QLL is stronger , there ’s more friction between the crystallization , and they do n’t slue so easily . When you pace on cold snow , the quartz glass rub against each other and also develop , attain that oh so familiar squeaking sound .
The dividing air between screaky and non - squeaky C is around14 ° F , so if that crunchy noise tends to gravel you , then that would be good to keep in mind before you lace up your boots and go on a walk in the snow .
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A adaptation of this clause was in the beginning put out in 2016 and has been update for 2023 .
