Say your friend has a nifty trick to show you. A snowball is thrown, a lighter is pulled out, and the flame is brought into the snow. When the snow melts, we would expect it to be a pile of slush, but it isn’t. it turns black. What’s up? Can you melt snowballs with a lighter?
Snowballs have low moisture content in the snow, and due to the insulating properties of the air and airspace of the snowball, they will not melt even when burned with a lighter, preventing water from dripping.
Lots of fun things to come. Bring a lighter, and we’ll explain in detail why the snow doesn’t melt and what it takes to set it on fire. You won’t want to miss it!
Table of Contents
No, you can’t melt snowballs with a lighter.
So you can try the lighter trick yourself, and you will find that it is identical to the one described in the introduction. The lighter’s flame darkens the affected area of the eye, but the snow itself does not melt. As I said in the introduction, this happens for a variety of reasons. Now let’s be clear.
The lighter provides incomplete combustion.
The number one reason why snowballs don’t melt when you burn them is because of your tools to create the sparks. When the lighter’s metal wheel is turned over and ignited, a scientific process called incomplete combustion occurs.
Incomplete combustion occurs due to a lack of oxygen. Fuel requires oxygen, so a lack of oxygen produces more combustion products such as soot. The flame won’t be that big or strong either.
Incomplete combustion has many causes, including too little total air, temperature fluctuations, and insufficient oxygen and fuel mixing.
When incomplete combustion occurs, anything you try to burn, a snowball or metal, will not melt. Instead, it turns black and has a terrible burning smell.
Depending on where you place the lighter on the snowball, the blackening effect may be more pronounced. For example, if a lighter is under a snowball, the combustion particles move upwards as the heat rises.
There is little water in the snow.
This is what we talked about on our blog about fair trade. For snow to be suitable for outdoor activities such as making a snowman or rolling a snowball, the snow must have adequate free water.
Free water content is 3 to 13% or more of the water in the eye: the fewer free numbers, the more fluffy the snow. Too much water turns the snow into sludge.
Even with 13% free water, 87% of the snow is not water. This is air.
If you expected a lighter to stick to a snowball for a few minutes and create a puddle, you’d be disappointed.
Air acts as an insulator.
What is all this air doing in the snow? For example, he quarantines.
If you’ve been to an igloo, you’ll feel comfortable and warm even though it’s cold and frozen outside. This is an isolation of action.
This effect is reproduced throughout the snowball due to the air pockets. To melt the snow crystals, all this air has to go through, and it takes time.
Now compare this to ice melting with a lighter or other flames. Ice is mostly water, so it dissolves much faster. You will also receive the pool you were looking for.
Water is hiding in the airspace of the snowball.
The last reason the snowball doesn’t start to fall badly when you bring the lighter is that there is a lot of airspace in the snowball as you already set it up. In addition to isolating the snow crystals, a lot of air space in the snowflakes hides the melting snow crystals.
Capillary action occurs. What is capillary action? This process determines how the fluid flows. If you are in a confined space, there is a capillary law that says that a liquid like water will pass through that space, whether or not gravity can stimulate the movement of water.
In snowballs, water is pressed into the air space between the snow crystals. Water molecules are dense enough that they can easily clump together to form bonds that are difficult to break.
The Real vs. Fake Snow Controversy
Some have suggested that snow doesn’t melt with lighters, so it shouldn’t be real. Instead, they believe that the white, fluffy fabric in the forest lands is the “government eye.”
There will be nanobots that can spy on you in the snow.
Conspiracy theories are becoming more and more prevalent, and many of them can be destructive. Snow cannot be burnt on the ground just because it can’t be burned in the air.This is not the government’s eye. There is no such thing.
Snow can’t just fall from the sky when it wants. Several conditions must be met. The outside temperature must be below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The air cannot be too humid, but it cannot be wholly dehumidified.
So is there artificial snow? Yes. But the government doesn’t use it—ski resort to do. By creating fake snow, ski resorts can extend the season. If there is not much snow, especially in the dry winter, you can make money by opening artificial snow this year.
So how would that explain the widespread snowfall in southern states like Texas, where the average temperature is in the 70s and 80s?
Artificial eyes are made up of sodium polyacrylate or another type of polyacrylate polymer. The polymer is ground to form snowflake-sized particles. As pigmentation can occur, artificial eyes appear white.
But we want it to be precise. Artificial snow is only used on ski slopes.
So how does this explain why it snows in southern states like Texas, where average temperatures are 70-80 degrees?
The answer to this question is simple. This is global warming. As the name suggests, global warming is gradually heating the planet, which is not the only side effect. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, warmer temperatures on Earth are now evaporating water into the atmosphere at a faster rate.
This leads to an increase in precipitation regardless of storm or blizzard. Global warming is also causing or contributing to many extreme and even irregular weather events that are becoming increasingly common.
Texas snow is a very extreme weather phenomenon!
Unless we all do something to slow global warming, this strange weather event will continue. However, this does not mean that the conspiracy is being prepared. On the contrary, the reality is much darker.
What does it take to burn snow?
Snow is not afraid to burn. Lighters cannot burn effectively, but other sources of heat can ignite snowballs and giant snowballs. This 2014 Oklahoma News 4 article shows a video of glowing eyes that seem useless.
Conspiracy theorists were far more helpful (pun intended) to suggest artificial snow fell on Oklahoma.
Fortunately, Wayne Harris Wyrick of the Oklahoma Museum of Science has clarified the discrepancy. What happened in the viral video, he says, is perfectly logical and can easily be explained by science.
As a result of the heat source used in the video, hard snow immediately turned into ice, then to steam. Harris Wyrick calls this process sublimation.
Sublimation is a topic we have already covered earlier in this blog. When moisture is lost in the atmosphere, the eye can immediately skip the liquid state and turn it into vapor. This doesn’t happen every day, but it is possible.
Last Thoughts
You can’t melt a snowball with just a lighter. Instead, make it black. Now let’s say you used a much more powerful heat source. It can burn snow and change from solid to vapor through what is known as sublimation.
Next time you see strange eye phenomena, investigate. In general, every weather situation has a scientific explanation!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
How do you melt snow?
The easiest and cheapest way to get rid of snow is to use a home-made hot water mixture. To make it, mix 0.5 gallons of hot water, 6 drops of liquid dishwashing liquid, and 2 ounces of rubbing alcohol in a bucket. Pour the mixture evenly over the driveway or sidewalk, and the eyes will break instantly.
How long does it take for snow to melt?
Two to four inches of snow can melt in three days at 50 degrees. When the temperature drops below zero at night, the process slows down. The amount of moisture in the air can speed up the melting process, while wind carries moisture and maintains snow cover.
Why does snow not melt on mountain tops?
Mountain snow does not melt immediately when heated by the sun. At 0 degrees the eye moves from a solid to a liquid, and the energy required for this change is called latent heat. Because this latent effect is so high, it takes more heat and time, so the ice doesn’t melt right away.
Why does snow take so long to melt?
Heating this ice to 32° doesn’t require that much energy in the long run, but it takes a lot longer as it takes a lot more energy to melt this ice. This is why it takes so long for snow and ice to melt when we finally don’t freeze.
