Snow In Houston—What Is Snow?

(Blogger’s Note—This is updated for the February, 2011 Houston snow.)

It is snowing in Houston today. One to two inches are expected.

(Here is a picture I took of the above mentioned snowfall in Houston. And here is another.)

(Above–Woman wearing mini-skirt in a 1969 New York City snowstorm.)

While that might not be big news in much of the country, it rarely snows in Houston.

Today’s snow is the earliest recorded snowfall ever in Houston.

What is snow? Here are basic facts about snow from Clouds R Us.com—

“Snow forms if the air in a cloud is below freezing. The water vapour then turns to ice instead of rain and the tiny ice crystals stick together until they form snowflakes. When they get heavy enough to fall, they drop out of the clouds. At this point though, we still don’t know whether they will end up as rain or remain as snow. This depends on the temperature of the air they travel through on the way down to the ground. If it gets warmer, they turn into rain, but if the air stays close to freezing all the way down, then the snowflakes will make it without melting and so fall as snow. If this occurs in a mountain area, it is possible for snow to be falling on the mountaintop while lower down in the valley the air is warmer and so it is raining instead.”

The National Snow & Ice Data Center has plenty of information about–yes–snow and ice.

Ice is part of the story in Houston today because there is concern that the roads will freeze this evening and overnight.

Snowcrystals.com will tell you all need to know about snowflakes.

Here are tips about surviving a blizzard.

Here are 22 tips for driving on an icy road.

Please be careful on the roads.

Please slow down and be careful on all the highways of life.

We won’t be snowbound very long in Houston. By Tuesday we are forecast to be back up to 71 degrees.

(Below–A 1966 North Dakota blizzard.)