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IFLScience We Have Questions: Why Does Snow Sometimes Look Blue?

Snow is quite famous for appearing white – but it's not always that way.

Rachael Funnell

Writer & Senior Digital Producer

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Episode 10 of We Have Questions playing on a smartphone, against a snow-covered background — Episode 10 of We Have Questions.
Image credit: Andrei Stepanov/innakreativ/Leigh Prather/Macrovector/Shutterstock.com; modified by IFLScience

This article first appeared in Issue 29 of our digital magazine CURIOUS.

Snow is beautiful, but also powerful and destructive – and, if we’re honest, a bit confusing. For something made entirely of water, it can come in many forms: light and fluffy, sticky and heavy, shaped like a perfect snowflake, or falling in needle-like flecks. Its consistency changes a lot, but so does its color, which got us wondering: why does snow sometimes look blue?

To find out, we reached out to Dr Andrew Schwartz at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab in California. These researchers are no strangers to snow – and we were delighted to learn that yes, their research sometimes does involve just frolicking in the stuff.

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