SNOW!!!

Well, this is one way to temporarily stop a severe drought.  Drop a foot of snow on the ground.  Then add temperatures of single digits for the next 4 days.  It should be hard to catch any grass on fire.  It's a good thing to because winds have been in the 50's. 

We took advantage of the cold to teach some science.  Ever throw hot water into the freezing air? 
You'll get snow (because we didn't get enough the old-fashioned way).  Here's the science behind it:

All things being equal, cold water freezes faster.

It takes time for the energy contained in a hot object to be transferred to a cold object. However, the rate of heat transfer is proportional to the temperature difference between the two objects, so hot water will lose heat faster than cold water. In other words, if you have water at 90 degrees C and water at 10 degrees C and the freezer is at -10 degrees C, the hot water will lose heat five times faster than the cold water; however, the cold water will still win the race.  As the hot water cools it’s rate of heat transfer will decrease, so it will never catch up to the cold water.

 Some people claim that hot water freezes faster because a pot of boiling water can be thrown into the air on a cold winter day, and it freezes in mid air creating a shower of ice crystals. Whereas a pot of cold water thrown into the air comes down as large blobs of water. This happens because the hot water is so close to being steam, that the act of throwing it into the air causes it to break up into tiny droplets. (hot water is less viscous than cold water, listen to the sound it makes when you pour it in the sink) The small water droplets have a large surface area which allows for a great deal of evaporation, this removes heat quickly. And finally, the cooled droplets are so small, that they can be easily frozen by the winter air. All of this happens before the water hits the ground. Cold water is thicker and stickier, it doesn’t break up into such small pieces when thrown into the air, so it comes down in large blobs.


Joe Larsen, Ph.D. Chemistry, Rockwell Science Center, Los Angeles, CA
Kathy Ceceri also blogs at Home Biology

We're just glad that we didn't get the ice that was expected earlier in the week!