The Sound of Snow | weatherology°
This website uses cookies to improve your user experience and for analytical purposes. By clicking the "Accept & Close" button, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device while using this site. Please see our privacy policy to learn more about how and why we use cookies.
By: Meteorologist Michael Karow
Updated: Dec 4th 2023

The Sound of Snow

Ever notice after a heavy blanket of new snow how the world seems just a little bit quieter outside? In his poem, “The Snowfall Is So Silent,” the poet Miguel de Unamuno put it this way:
      
       The silent snow comes down
       white and weightless;
       snowfall makes no noise,
       falls as forgetting falls,
       flake after flake.
       It covers the fields gently
       while frost attacks them
       with its sudden flashes of white;
       covers everything with its pure
       and silent covering;

Recently, actual acoustic measurements have been taken of snow which lend quantitative credence to these sound muffling characteristics. According to a study from IBP in Germany, a sample of snow (which was 59% porous) had a sound absorption which ranged from 60-80% in higher frequencies from 500 to 2000 Hz.

The porous nature of the snow, with lots of air pockets in between the individual flakes or clusters of flakes, functions much like man-made sound absorbing materials, like foams and fibers. However, when snow goes through thawing and re-freezing, it can become more compact and even form ice. This can reflect and even enhance certain sound frequencies. That's why it is after a newly-fallen, fluffy (more porous) snow that it seems just a bit quieter outside; in the absence of wind, of course.

snowflakes
The air pockets in between newly-fallen snowflakes act to absorb sound
melted snowflakes ice water
After snow undergoes thawing and re-freezing it loses its ability to absorb sound and even reflects it, when ice is formed