Category: Nature

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Cold Ton, also: Every Snow (Part 8)

In the world of units of standards and measure, there are weight distinctions to make. They’re confusing to the uninitiated, so here’s a quick reference guide in increasing ranks:

Crap Ton < Ass Load < Fuck Ton < Mother Load

Some of these are archaic, others are preferred in different industries, and some are the result of the Metric vs Imperial system.

These shouldn’t be mixed up with other measurements that append a descriptor to simply emphasize an ephemeral state. An example: “cold as balls” and “hot as balls”. Neither make much sense in an etymological sense, but that’s besides the point. You get the message.

So how to measure the weight of snow? I propose “Cold Ton”, but until that becomes standardized I’ll default to the American “Short Ton” of 2000lbs, vs the European “Metric Ton/Long Ton” of 1000kgs.

So when it snowed recently, during a cold as balls weekend, what originally appeared to be a Fuck Ton of snow quickly superseded Mother Load status upon measurement. It warranted such data collection, as it was the most snow I had ever seen.

Working from home, I’m generally not terribly inconvenienced by snow, so long as it doesn’t damage anything or knock out the power. So let’s first look at some nice pictures:

But, I still have to shovel it off the driveway, and even with the help of conscripted labor, it required two days and 16 Ibuprofen. Such a feat required me to measure the final weight of our adversary. Because data and math!

First off, I established a weight/volume baseline, because snow density isn’t a universal constant. Using a measuring cup and a kitchen scale, I determined that one cup (8 fluid ounces) of non-packed snow weighed 1.2 ounces by weight. And with a cubic foot being 957.5 fluid ounces (our snow in question therefore weighed ~9 pounds per cubic foot), and my driveway being 1581 square feet (which equals the same in cubic feet because we got almost exactly one foot of snow), and of course 1 pound being 16 ounces by weight…

We removed 14,191 pounds of snow from the driveway. Which equals about 7.1 Short Tons of snow!

(My proposal: Cold Ton = Ibuprofen / Short Tons. We received 2.25 Cold Tons of snow.)

Here’s what that amount of snow looks like visually. The portion shown in this photo is about half of the total:

Snow is heavy, and I certainly understand now how little of it will kill you if buried in an avalanche. Or why people get heart attacks shoveling it.

–Simon

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Snowflake

I don’t want to post pictures from the holidays. I’m done with the holidays and want to move on. I’m middle-aged now and don’t find much magic in the rituals anymore. Any joy I had left was by proxy: watching my daughter enjoy them. But she’s a teen now and wants to distance herself from anything family-oriented. Plus it’s the age at which being overtly happy about anything just isn’t cool. It’s cool to be a cynic and hate.

So I’ll pass on the tree and house light photos this year. Instead, here’s a brief reflection on one of my own moments of lost magic. Here is a single snowflake, captured poorly with my aging phone camera:

Contrasted nicely against the lid of the recycling bin

It was cold enough that individual crystals were falling without clumping together. It reminded me of when I learned what they actually are.

Another consequence of a Texan upbringing, I didn’t see much snow. Some light dustings here and there, but rarely anything of consequence. So I knew snow mostly from movies. And there’s a particular scene in Disney’s Fantasia with fairies dancing in snowfall, using individual snowflakes as dresses. Granted I’d never seen a fairy before either, but my assumption was that they’re 6-12 inches tall. Representations in various media confirm this, probably because that’s a good size to work the physical world around. Any smaller and our existing environment wouldn’t scale well to make understandable films, any larger and they’re just small people. Ergo, I made the connection that a snowflake dress, presented as being as wide as the fairy was tall, would therefore be around 6-12 inches in diameter.

So you might understand my disappointment when, on a rare day of Texas snow, when my mother exclaimed “Snowflakes!” when glancing out the window, that I was greeted with the sight of tiny specks of white, and not gargantuan plates of ice crystals, floating gracefully to the ground. Such is life.

But still, on a micro level, individual snowflakes are pretty cool to look at.

–Simon

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Every Snow (Part 6)…

El Niño, La Niña – one of these. A wet winter was predicted, and so it has been! Trifle not with the apparently Spanish sea gods. Here’s the second big one of the season:

Additionally, there were some unanticipated consequences from the metal roof install. Most notably, the glaciers that develop, which catastrophically cascade. Some snow shield installs are in the future.

–Simon