Why is the snow look white and water colorless?

Answer 1

From HowStuffWorks.com:

Snow is a whole bunch of individual ice crystals arranged together. When a light photon enters a layer of snow, it goes through an ice crystal on the top, which changes its direction slightly and sends it on to a new ice crystal, which does the same thing. Basically, all the crystals bounce the light all around so that it comes right back out of the snow pile. It does the same thing to all the different light frequencies, so all colors of light are bounced back out. The "color" of all the frequencies in the visible spectrum combined in equal measure is white, so this is the color we see in snow, while it is not the color we see in the individual ice crystals that form snow.

Answer 2

It's due to scattering of light. Snow is essentially a bunch of highly organized ice crystals that are randomly bunched together where air fills the voids. This highly random structure (and the difference in refractive indices between ice and air) results in a large amount of scattering (compared to liquid water). And, since both ice and water do not absorb visible light, scattering occurs for all "colors" of light and causes the snow to appear white.

Answer 3

Water is only a liquid but snow consists of some solid particle like fog in it

Answer 4

Check for literature below on refractive index of snow (and co-relate vis-a-vis refractive index of water) The literate below tell you what is snow
Behavior of light over snow has nothing to do with density (in any case ice floats over water because of lesser density )

http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/hydro/aviris/optics.html

Subhash

Answer 5

The cold frosts the water.

Answer 6

I dont know but wouldnt it be cool if it snowed in different colors?

Answer 7

Im guessing maybe because snow is denser and reflects more light?

Answer 8

because when the rain falls, it freezes so fast, while in motion, ice crystals form, causing a white hue.

Answer 9

Its something to do with light refraction.