1" rain = x" of snow?

Answer 1

The general formula is that 1 " of rain = 10 inches of snow. However it varies greatly with the temperature. At very cold temperatures it can be 20 inches of powdery snow. At warmer temps it can be 3 or 4 inches of very wet snow.

Answer 2

As has been said before it varies. In Scotland and the Alps where I've studied snow it's generally about 1 inch of rain makes 2 inches of snow (an average).

When snow first falls it has a lot of trapped air in it so it's light and fluffy but once it's been lying for a while it consolidates and much of the air is squeezed out, this will affect the amount of water it contains. Ultimately, snow will compress under it's own weight until it forms ice (that's what a glacier is) at which point it's only slightly less dense than water.

Different atmospheric conditions lead to different types of snow flake falling. In very cold conditions snow flakes are quite dense and fall more as ice than as snow, at conditions close to or just above freezing snow tends to be very wet and slushy. In both cases the snow is dense and holds a lot of water. At temperatures a bit below freezing it's more likely that snow will fall as large fluffy flakes and trap a lot of air in them. In such conditions it could be as much as 10 inches of snow that's equivalent to one inch of rain.

Answer 3

10

Answer 4

10 inches of snow