Can snow keep you warm?
Absolutely yes. You only have to think of Eskimos and igloos to start making sense of this. Carving out ice blocks and building containers actually traps heat and provides shelter from the environment – this is not a myth.
An example of snow’s insulating abilities lies much close to home. The last couple of winters has seen a lot of snow fall in the UK, and you may have notices that with two feet of snow on your roof that your house was actually able to stay a little warmer than when the roof was clear. Additionally, the snow dampened outside noise.
Snow and ice are quite different in their properties considering they are composed of the same thing and you can observe this in nature – the temperature underneath frozen ground can have frost extending perhaps six feet into the ground. But if there is a thick layer of snow, the ground is much less likely to be frosted to anything like that depth. This is one reason why football matches can proceed even when there has been fresh snow fallen overnight – that fresh light layer actually protects the ground from freezing and making our national sport impossible.
