For decades, scientists have generally approached the physics of falling snow the same way they did rain — assuming it’ll drop straight down.
Anyone who’s seen the fluffy white stuff swirl through the air, however, knows that’s not what happens in the real world.
New research from the University of Utah is demystifying the science behind that swirliness. Tim Garrett, who led the study, said the way snow dances through the air is surprisingly predictable.
“Even though the snowflake motions were chaotic, they also seem to be in some way carefully choreographed,” the University of Utah atmospheric sciences professor said. “There was an underlying mathematical simplicity to how the snowflakes were moving that we did not expect to see.”
The research found exponential connections between snow’s speed, shape and size — patterns that scale up or down in a linear fashion as the wind becomes more or less turbulent. They discovered as turbulence increased, the flakes also got bigger and fell harder.
“We were able to see some sort of deeper connection that we do not yet understand between how snowflakes swirl in the air and how big and fluffy the snowflakes ultimately get.”
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.