“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”
– Irving Berlin
Yesterday we experienced our first proper snow storm of the winter and snow day from school. In the evening, my son and I went outside and played in the snow. We noticed there was a hard crust about 4 inches down where the snow was icy from rain last week. The the top five inches was super light and fluffy. It brought to mind the old adage that the native people of the arctic, the Inuits, had countless words for snow. So I did a little research when we got home.
It makes sense that the Inuit people would have many words for snow. Snow is a big part of their world. Sources listed different words for slush, granular snow, soft snow, a snowy overhang, snow on the ground, falling snow, deep snow, fine snow, wet snow, and powder snow. As I read each of these translations to English, I could picture the type of snow. I imagined how it feels to touch and to walk on with boots. It dawned on me that all of us who live in the north are not all that different in our many descriptions of snow and winter precipitation.
Like the Inuits, snow is a big part of our world. We know when it is good for skiing (powder), snowmobiling (soft), and building snowmen (sticky). My son and I knew that the snow yesterday wasn’t going to be good for building snowmen or snow forts, so we decided to just play in it, slide down the hills, and make snow angels.
We northerners also like to have a white Christmas. This is likely because looking at 124 years of data, Minnesota experiences a white Christmas more often than not. The Twin Cities experience a white Christmas 71% of the time, while northern Minnesota cities like Detroit Lakes, Brainerd, and Bemidji experience a white Christmas 90% of the time. The probability of a white Christmas in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is 100%! Lucky for us, it looks like it will be a white Christmas this year. Enjoy the frozen lakes, and Happy Holidays to you and your family!
Moriya Rufer is a water quality professional with 20 years experience working with lakes in northern Minnesota.
Sources:
Alaska Native Language Center:
https://www.uaf.edu/anlc/research-and-resources/resources/archives/inuit_snow_terms.php
Minnesota State Climatology Office: White Christmas Probability
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/summaries_and_publications/white_christmas.html
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