From Cloud to Ice: A Snowflake’s Tale

Have you ever noticed the many different forms of snow? Snow starts out as snowflakes high up in the clouds. They fall to the ground, piling up as layers, like a cake. Snow can turn into water if temperatures rise high enough or turn into ice if left to pile up over many years. Some places always have snow, some only in winter, and some never! But snow is important for life on Earth and helps shape Earth’s climate, which affects everyone. In this article, we explore different forms of snow. We follow snowflakes on their path from dancing in the clouds to being buried in thick layers of ice, called glaciers. On their journey, the snowflakes change their shape many times. We scientists study this “snow journey” to better understand how and why snow transforms and how this impacts our planet today, in the past and in the future.