WEBVTT - Pink Snow, Black Snow, Space Snow, Weird Snow 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.040 Work dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.080 My name is Robert Brown, and I'm showing the format. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:17.840 Before we get going real quick, here a few things 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:19.720 you need to know. First of all, Stuff to Blow 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.280 your Mind dot Com that's our mothership. That's their homepage. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.479 Visit that site if you want all the podcast episodes, videos, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.200 blog post and links out to our social media accounts. 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:31.000 And of course we bring this show to you free 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:33.560 of charge. You are never expected to pay for Stuff 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:35.280 to Blow Your Mind. 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We're 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.000 doing those most Fridays these days, so you can find 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.440 out more information about that at our Facebook or a Twitter. 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.399 All right, Joe, let's get going on the topic here today. 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.440 We're talking about snow because we are in the midst 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.440 of winter of some sort where we are highly unlikely 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:19.920 to see snow, because, let's face it, we live in 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.000 Atlanta and it's not unusual to have a d degree 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.000 days in December. Yes, most of my snow these days 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.560 is coming in the form of storytelling and storybook reading 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.240 with my son, particularly the Doctor Seuss book The Cat 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.400 in the Hat Comes Back. Are you familiar with this 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:40.959 text at all? I don't think so. No. Now was 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.800 this written this one in Alexander Sultan Itsen? No? No, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.560 this was Dr sus is Doctor Sears? Okay, the Cat 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.440 in the Hat comes back? Does he come back for revenge? Um? Depended, 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:53.400 you know, it depends on your read of Cat in 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.919 the Hat and what cat and what this hat cat 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.360 wants out of its visits. This is, of course, the 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.960 sequel to The Cat in the Hat. You might remember 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.520 that one is the adventure in which the cat shows 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.440 up on a rainy day and starts causing a mess, 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:09.760 brings in Thing one and Thing two, and they run 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.040 him up and then Eventually they have to catch thing 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:14.800 and the thing one and thing too and uh, Sally 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.360 and her brother get the cat out, get the place 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.000 cleaned up, just in the nick of time. But they've 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.680 effectively staved off boredom, so it's not a total loss. Yeah, indeed. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.799 But in the sequel, this is what's happening. It's a 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.760 snow day. There's snow everywhere, and Sally and her brother 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.320 are outside cleaning up the snow and her mother is 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.600 that their mothers who knows where, but they're at home 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.760 doing chores. Cat and Hat shows up, goes in the house, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.200 and the brother instantly thinks, well, this is no good. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.000 I'm going in. I'm gonna check this out and make 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.160 sure the cat's not racking the place like he did 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.079 last time. Because the cat and Hat is a is 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.519 an agent of chaos, and I don't think he's I 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.320 don't think he's good or bad, but he brings chaos 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.919 to wherever he goes. He's kind of a low key figure, yeah, exactly. 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.720 He's a trickster god. And in this particular incident, the 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.200 first name the cat does is start eating pink cake 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:09.040 in the bathtub, which is which looks very fun and inviting, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.680 you know the book, uh, and the boy he says, 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:14.480 all right, the brothers says, there, you gotta get out 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:15.880 of there. This is making a mess, and indeed it 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.800 makes a pink ring in the tub when he drains it. 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.160 So the cat in the hats thing is has always 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.239 been that he's gonna help clean up because he's responsible. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.960 But his cleanup techniques tend to be a bit chaotic 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:30.240 as well, and in this case it is kind of 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.800 an Amelia Badelia. Right. Yeah, even the well meaning attempts 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.480 to fix things sort of cause more chaos, right, and 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.120 his methods are are strange, And in this case it's 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.200 not it's not a situation where you just all right, well, 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.119 let's wash off the tub like a normal person would. 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.280 The cat transfers the pink stain from one item to 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:48.880 another in the house, so it goes everywhere until it 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.200 eventually winds up on the father's bed and he has 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.880 to call in all these additional hat cats, these increasingly 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.840 smaller cat in the hats from under his hat. With 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.000 each one has a different letter of the alphabet is 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.320 its name, So eventually you just have all there's a 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.440 whole bunch of different sized hat cats working to destroy 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.400 the stain, which eventually ends up outside the house, staining 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.160 all of the snow. Uh. And they keep trying harder 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.440 and harder, they keep pulverizing the snow, but it remains pink. 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.560 It's only when the very smallest hat cat of all 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.279 hat cat z, a cat that is so small that 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.599 we we are told we cannot actually see it, that 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.040 cat takes off his hat and inside that is something 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:36.120 called voom, and zoom cleans up all the snow, makes 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.800 it white again. But what is voom? I don't know. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.440 That's the That's that's a question that I want our 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.760 listeners to keep in mind. Two questions. A what is 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.160 this pink snow exactly that Sally and her brother and 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:54.080 the hat cats are dealing with. And indeed, what is voom? What? 0:04:54.080 --> 0:05:00.359 What is this uh this strange substance or or mo 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.760 molecule or or energy within the the hat cats these 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.120 hat what is it? And how does it clean up 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.720 that snow? It's MINTI Glorean's it might be well. Obviously, 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.960 the cat and the hat comes back is just a 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.360 delightful children's fantasy, But there are a lot of strange 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:23.480 facts and strange circumstances in which people have encountered quite 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.640 bizarre snow events in the real world. I don't know 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.960 about Boom, but pink snow is not just a dream. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.760 It's a fact about reality. It happens sometimes for various 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.080 causes and in various locations, and not just pink. We've 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.920 seen black snow, green snow, blue snow, we've seen We've 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.760 seen weird snow sculptures that seem not to have been 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.160 made by humans or animals. We've seen snow that some 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.200 people think isn't actually made of water and it's maybe 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.320 some kind of like nano robot army invading the world. 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:58.320 So so I thought it would be worth doing an 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.560 episode just to talk about out all of the weird 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:06.560 ways that that snow can freak people out. Indeed, indeed, 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:09.520 so let's you know, one one way that that a 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.200 natural phenomena intends to freak us out is when it's 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.920 it's size is different, you know, I mean, that's the 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.400 whole thing. Nobody cares about seeing a rat, but if 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:20.799 you see a giant rat, and well that's worth talking about. 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.400 How about giant snowflakes? Yeah, you know, snowflakes are not 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:30.160 like scorpions, whereas with a scorpion, a giant scorpion, that's 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.840 really interesting. But even a normal size, very small scorpion 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.880 is worth your attention. How big does a snowflake have 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.320 to get before you actually stop and take notice? Well, 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.479 that's a good question. So obviously a normal size I 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.400 don't know what what what a normal size would be? 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:47.839 Maybe a couple of millimeters or so for a snowflake 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.359 that that's not worth your attention. If it were a 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.760 few inches across, that would be something you'd notice, right, Um, 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.120 And it turns out that that does happen sometimes. Now, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:02.080 the biggest on record is one where the record itself 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.560 is highly disputable. The traditional record holder for for the 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.080 biggest snowflake was supposedly observed by a rancher named Matt 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:15.840 Coleman of Fort Keo, Montana in eighteen seven. That is 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.240 big sky country, right, oh is it? I think so? 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.800 In the Montana big sky count I don't know. I mean, 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.400 if there's bigger sky or the bigger snowflakes, I would 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.920 guess so that that seems to be the relationship going 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.119 on here. Well, let's hear what Matt had to say 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.880 about what happened on a ranch. According to Matt, there 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.560 were snowflakes that were falling that were bigger than a 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:38.360 milk pan. Yeah, so they were fifteen inches wide and 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.200 eight inches thick. So you've got these like frisbee sized 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.960 snow Yeah, that's like a that's like a pizza. And 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.320 also one of the things you'd have to imagine is 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.440 that a snowflake of that size would have enough density 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.600 with the ice crystal within it that it would be 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.680 falling pretty fast and pretty hard. This is certainly something 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.720 that's true. Larger snowflake tend to fall faster. Uh, those 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.480 snowflakes that are several inches across will fall faster than 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.880 you know, light fluffy, tiny little thing. So I don't 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.000 know what it would be like to stand under a 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.640 snowflake that's fifteen inches wide. I mean, would that be 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.480 like a giant Ninja star coming from this guy to 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.440 kill you? I mean it almost sounds like like a 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.560 spiritual experience. It's like like seeing an alien life form 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.720 or an angelic visitation is occurring in your life, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.600 death frisbees from heaven. But anyway, fifteen inches wide, I 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.640 don't somehow, I don't believe Matt the Rancher. I think 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.440 Matt the Rancher may have been exaggerating. That's just my 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.880 gut feeling. It could be wrong. Apparently this guy's word 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.200 was good enough for the Guinness Book of World Records. 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:46.600 But I mean, it's not like they sent a team 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.680 of investigators out there to verify it and they measured 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.760 the snowflake and everything. I think we're pretty much just 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.400 going on what this guy said he saw. Okay, and 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.640 I can easily imagine a rancher out in the middle 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.400 of nowhere in Montana and have you think kind of 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.319 looks the same. After a few days, the mind begins 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.280 the sort of non itself a little bit, and then 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.640 in the midst of a snowstorm, you are visited by this, uh, 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:16.640 this geometric entity, right Thor's and Ninja stars. Yeah, you 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.120 call up Guinnis and they write it down because they 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.480 need to push some coffees. Okay, So, and I don't 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.200 know about fifteen inches, but it's definitely true that that 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.079 snowflakes several inches across happened sometimes around the world, and 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.839 that's freaky enough on its own. YEA, if I saw 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.360 a snowflake three or four inches across, I would think 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.920 the Odin's sleep was dawning, Yeah, or that I was 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.120 shrinking one of the two. That's a good way of 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.280 looking at it too, But of course that's not the 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.680 only way that snow can do something physically very strange 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.920 with without having anybody mess with it. Yeah, and this 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.360 was something I had I had not heard of before. 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.200 This was a new one when you brought this up 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:55.920 to this episode. Yeah. So I want to put you 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.560 in a scenario. Imagine you are out hiking in the 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.560 rocky mountains on New Year's Day. You're a little bit hungover, 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.280 You've got your rifle across your back, You've got your 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.000 snow shoes on your feet, and you've got your VHS 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.040 camcorder with the cracked lens and it's fully charged up 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.280 on battery power. Because today is the day you are 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.120 finally going to capture video evidence of Bigfoot. Well, you know, 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.760 that is my New Year's resolution for the coming year, 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.840 just finally, you know, quit talking about it and just 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.120 get some video footage of of the of the SAT squad. 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.920 Put up or shut up, It's the ultimate personal betterment. 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.679 But anyway, you're you're snow shoeing alone through a desolate 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.480 mountain pass and suddenly you come out of the pines 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.920 into this pristine, snow covered clearing and you look out 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.280 beyond the path and you see something very strange. You 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:50.680 see dozens of white cylinders lying on the ground on 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:55.240 their side, each between about like one and two feet tall, 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.280 And the best way to describe it is that it 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.080 looks like someone has taken a flyer layer of snow 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.640 and rolled it up like you might roll up a 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:09.280 flat sheet of pastry into a cinnamon roll. And sometimes 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.560 it's this solid, spiraling cylinder like the cinnamon roll, and 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.560 sometimes it's more like a doughnut. There's a hole in 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.440 the middle, making it look like a white car tire 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:23.160 or one description I've read, a gigantic white cheerio just 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.120 sitting there in the snow. And you look around and 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.720 there are no footprints anywhere, no indication that anyone has 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:36.040 created these giant icy spirals, unless, of course sasquatch has 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.240 wings now, and you know that's how he did it. 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.320 But what's going on here? Well, I read an article 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.920 where a guy named Mike Stanford had an experience like 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.400 this in two thousand seven. He wasn't hunting sasquatch, No 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.760 no rifle or VHS cam quarter. But in a two 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.880 thousand seven article for the Seattle Times, the author Susan 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.000 Gilmour speaks to Stanford, who's this avalanche control role expert 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.319 for the Washington State Department of Transportation. That sounds like 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.400 a pretty cool job, by the way. Yeah, plus sounds 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.520 like he's an ideal person to start thinking about this phenomenon, 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.480 right because the movement of snow, the physics of snow 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.840 that's right up is out. So while uh, Stanford was 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.160 out doing avalanche control work in the North Cascades in 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:24.040 March two thousand and seven, he came across these giant 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.240 doughnuts made of snow in a place called Washington Pass, 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.440 and the biggest ones were like two ft tall, with 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:32.640 a hole in the middle that he claimed was big 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.240 enough for him to fit his head through. I don't 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.800 know if that means he actually stuck his head all 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:40.400 the way through it, he said, he put his face 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:42.559 up to it. It does give me an idea to 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.360 write a horror story with this great novel execution device, 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.720 which would be the ice Gia team. Oh man, that yeah, 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:50.720 don't stick your head into one of these. That was 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.320 I mean, even if it's just two ft tall, it's 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.160 just uh yeah. I mean, we don't typically want to 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:01.200 be an alarmist on this podcast, but but just played 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.200 on the safe side, don't stick your head in, you know, 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.480 if you encounter some alien looking ice sore snow sculpture 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.960 out in the middle of nowhere, because yeah, this I think, 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:11.720 you know. Back to your question, like, how would I 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:13.600 respond to this, I think I would. I would be 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.559 a little freaked out by it, especially since, as I stated, 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.000 I was not familiar with this phenomena until you mentioned 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.120 it to me. Yeah, well I would pretty obviously. I 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.440 mean I've read about it now. But before I had 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.240 read about it, I would think someone had made these. Yeah, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.800 I would think ice cannibals that are waiting on me to, 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.959 you know, to look at their holy structures or perhaps 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.360 I scull them scat and therefore I need to be 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.959 aware that there's a giant creature of ice in my vicinity, right. 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.600 But no, they are not made by humans or by animals. 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.440 That they're very rare, but they've been sighted and photographed 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.680 all over the place everywhere, from the mountains to the 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:56.240 prairies on very special occasions, because they're they're just one 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.600 of those weird byproducts of the naked laws of physics 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.080 when all the variables are just right, and they really 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.439 do have to be just right. These things don't happen 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.199 very often. But here here's what you do. Oh, by 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.359 the way, the name of them, people call them snow rollers, 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.520 that's the most common. Also snow donuts, but the snow rollers. 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.600 So to get one, you start on the bottom with 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.760 a hard crusty surface of ice or solid snow. Uh 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.000 And it's it's supposed to be hard and crusty so 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.440 that the new falling snow doesn't stick to it very well. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.960 So you've got this hard, crusty surface and then looser, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.560 relatively wet snow piling up on top of the hard layer. 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:40.080 And then you add a force like gravity or just 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.440 the right kind of wind, and whichever one it is. 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.520 If it's gravity pulling it down along a slope or 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.080 wind blowing it across the side, there begins to be 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.760 a lateral movement across the ground and it scoops up 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.400 the layers of the looser, denser snow, which sticks to 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.680 itself but doesn't stick to the harder layer benea it 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.400 starts to roll up along the surface of the hard layer, 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:05.840 keeps picking up more loose snow as it goes, and 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:10.440 it essentially is a self forming snowball, like like you'd 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:14.040 used to make a snowman. Interesting. Okay, so yeah, that 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:15.600 sounds like the best way to think. But it is 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.120 self forming snowball. Snowball is forming on the surface of harder, 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.720 more compact snow slash ice. Right, So if you are 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.520 ever out wandering about in the snow and you see 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.600 one of these icy Swiss rolls, do not panic it 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.080 is it is not a sign of any looming danger. 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.840 You've just seen the laws of physics in very rare form. 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.840 But I think we should get to the all the 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.520 colors of the snow rain. But I want to ask 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:46.920 the question, can you paint with all the colors of 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.160 the snowstorm? Because I mean, most of us have only 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:55.000 seen white snow. I mean, I think it's fairly rare 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.400 to see snow of a different color. But it does 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.760 happen sometimes, right, And of course, once it falls, it 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:04.800 can become muddied quite literally by by many other things. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:06.880 You know, you get to get brownish and blackish snow 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.040 because of the mud puddles. You get yellow snow because 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.720 of the urine you can get you can get red 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.000 snow because of the you know, the sacrifices you're you're 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.240 making to the to the gods and goddesses of spring 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.960 to bring the crops back. Right, But generally speaking the 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:27.080 stuff falls white. Yeah, but not all the time. So Robert, 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.200 I know you are a fan of the red snows 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:32.960 of Hell. Oh yes, so I want to hear a 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.360 little bit about this or what's the deal what's going 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.280 on in hell when it snows? Well, of course, in 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.400 this we we're dipping back into the fantasy world, the 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.680 literary world, before we come back into natural world snow accumulation. 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.960 But yeah, if you look into the works of of Dante, 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.960 if you look into particularly Dante's Inferno, you find a 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.680 lot of meteorology. Because Dante was a guy who was 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.280 just interested in everything, and just about everything he was 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.800 interested in found its way into the divine comedy. Uh, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.320 And so there's a there's a lot of meteor meteorology 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.560 in his work. I do remember a lot of it. Like, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.160 aren't the people who are on the level of lust 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:17.000 are constantly blown around by winds that they can't they 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.240 can't stay solid and be constant. Yeah. There there are 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.639 a ton of different examples, and in fact, if anyone 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.600 wants to look into this more, there highly recommend the 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.800 Weather of Hell. A look at the meteorology of Dante's 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:33.879 Inferno by Randy Serveny, and he he looks at, for instance, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.640 how Dante seems to use of what would eventually become 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:42.200 our modern idea of convection and circulation cells. Really, yeah, 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.440 he does a he does a really fun job of 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:48.040 of lining up these different natural world weather phenomenons and 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:52.600 the observations of weather in the world that Dante creates 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.879 for us. Well, let's hear what Dante's got for us. 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:57.639 Can you give me an example? Yeah? Tying into uh 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:03.119 in today's topic, he mentions in Canto fourteen describing the 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.959 plane of burning sands. This is of course the translation 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:12.000 over all the sand fell slowly wafting down dilated flakes 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.440 of fire as flakes of snow on alpine summit when 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.640 the wind is hushed, as in the Torrett Indian Climb. 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:23.040 The sun of Ammon saw upon his warrior band ascending 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:28.400 solid flames that to the ground came down alright, So 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.639 you know he's talking about some reddish snow. It's kind 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.920 of open new interpretation. You can say, it's just it's 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:36.879 just it's easy to say, oh, I think he's just 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:38.800 talking about fire falling out of the sky. But he 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.080 started applying all this meteorology to the to the situation. 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.760 You can say, yeah, there's some sort of red snow 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.000 falling in Hell, which sounds right. Well wait a second, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.520 hold on, now, how do you have snow in Hell? 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:52.840 Because I thought Hell was supposed to be really hot. 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.200 That's actually a feature of Dante's Hell, right, that many 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.399 parts of Hell are quite cold. Oh yeah, I mean 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.439 especially the bottomost reaches of Hell. When you get down 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:05.439 to the frozen lake of Positis, where where Lucifer is imprisoned, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.720 he's frozen up to his waist in ice. So yeah, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:10.520 there's got a it's got a wonderful scene of a 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.520 couple of guys who are frozen up to their necks 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:14.199 and ice, and one of them is chewing on the 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.399 other one's head. Oh yeah, yeah. And then there are 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.960 individuals whose head is turned upward so that they weep 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.800 for their crimes, and the water pools in the in 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.480 their eye socket, and then the water freezes and the 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.680 expansion of the water in their eye sockets causes them 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.520 even more pain. See that's the kind of like like 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:34.880 we just a little science the nuggets that Dante threw 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.800 in there, like he knew, he knew how water expanded 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.040 when it froze, and so that ended up in a 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.040 feature of hell. Well, I have great admiration for that. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.119 So on the subject though, of of red snow, we 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.360 see a lot of different accounts of this as far 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.480 back as perhaps as the third century b C. When 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.840 Aristotle reported on the occurrence of red or blood snow. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.280 A few centuries later, the Roman historian Plenty the Elder 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.879 originated the idea that the occasional red color and snow 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.080 is essentially like that of rust and metals. So this 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.040 is just old snow and it turns red, it falls. Uh. 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.600 And I love those ancient uh, those ancient explanations for 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:17.520 things any any time you read those those old old scientists, 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:21.840 like when they weren't using magic to explain how things happened, 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.240 and they were trying to come up with natural explanations. 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.320 But they and they just weren't there yet. The explanations 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.880 they come up with are always great. Yeah, and uh, 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.640 you know, the historical accounts going from their English. These 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:40.879 these particular accounts are also mentioned in Serveni's article about 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.000 the about weather and hell Um. English historian the Reverend 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:50.199 Thomas Short reported some near general Italy red snow that 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.640 fell and quote gave a bloody liquor when squeezed. Gross. Yeah. Uh. 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.840 Seventeen fifty five, a six foot deep blood snowfall is 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.760 reported in the Alps. Eighteen ten, French newspapers reported that 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.359 a shower of red snow, together with a fall of 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:09.080 insects fell over Paris. H. Yeah, well, you know, ball 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.399 of insects. It was snowing snow that was red and 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.120 insects at the same time. Yeah, exactly. And we'll see, 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.800 as we'll we'll discuss those two could be combined some 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:24.440 of the same, uh, features of those two phenomena. Residents 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.840 of Alma, Colorado reported a pink snowstorm. And then two 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.760 thousand fifteen, as we'll get into you find a couple 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.800 of different colors of snow occurring in Russia. Orange snow 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:39.960 in Saratov on the Volga River and blue snow in 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:42.480 Chelly Banks. Yeah. Actually, I've got some stuff to say 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:44.960 about that blue snow in a bit, because that one 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:50.880