To laugh or to cry, the science of "fake snow"

For starters, I grew up in Western New York in a suburb of Buffalo.  Ya know, home of the infamous Blizzard of '77.  Right now I am staring out my window at 9" of the white stuff.  So when this headline, "‘Massive chemtrail’ operations found to be dumping ‘fake snow’ over Atlanta and parts of West Virginia, may signify a false flag attack on the populace" came screaming across my news feed, I had to chuckle. (Bare in mind this is one of many.)

Stop the press! A recent snowstorm that blanked Atlanta and parts of Virginia sending thousands of residents into turmoil, causing nearly the entire city to come to a standstill, may have been a false flag operation or beta test carried out by diabolic factions of the U.S. government.

While the motive is not yet fully known, one thing is for sure, havoc has ensued and something is just not sitting right with people in the region.

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I mean, anyone that has handled snow knows that it melts as it is simply made of water.

Shockingly, after “massive chemtrail” sightings over the state of Georgia and parts of West Virginia over the last few days, residents are becoming wiser–nonetheless the government and mainstream media remains silent.

Response by Atlanta city officials including the mayor have been limited, blaming the storm on a “faulty weather forecast”.

Concerned citizens and experts alike have been left to wonder how such a big city can be caught off guard by a snowstorm.

It is also important to point out that mainstream media rhetoric has become extremely unusual regarding the weather in Atlanta over the past 24 hours.  [Emphasis mine]

Now originally I was going to just ignore this garbage but a few things occurred that changed my mind. The con nutters, came out in full force, 40+ articles and still counting. Second, it came up in conversation at work (that was scarey). And third, Rachel Maddow did a piece about it.  Think about it people, a political commentator with a PhD in politics (and a Rhodes scholar to boot) is talking about "fake snow."

Not only did Maddow lampoon the "conspiracy" theory behind the "fake snow" she pointed to a scientific explanation behind it.  Enter Phil Plait:

To summarize, two things happen: One is that as the snow melts, the remaining snow absorbs the water. That’s why it doesn’t appear to drip; the snowball becomes a slushball.

Lots of people made videos showing the snowball not dripping so it looks like it’s not actually melting, but this is a classic case of confirmation bias. They only tested this part way; they didn’t finish the test by letting the snowball actually melt! I do that in my video, and you can even see the water getting absorbed into the snowballs I made.

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The black scorch marks are actually from the lighters themselves. Butane is a hydrocarbon, a molecule made up of carbon and hydrogen. When you burn it, the molecule reacts with oxygen in the air, breaking the bonds between atoms, and reforming new molecules. If the burning were perfect, all you’d have left is carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H20).

But the burning is never completely perfect, and you get other stuff too. One thing that happens is that some of the carbon molecules reform into long chains, creating what we call soot. It’s that stuff that’s collecting on the snowball, not material from the snow itself!

So yet again we see the importance of teaching science, not a religious ideology!!

Just for shits and giggles, here are some more science based articles:

Why 'Fake' Snow 'Doesn't Melt'--Because It's Real

Curiosities: How does snow sublimation work? According to Steve Ackerman, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin, this is actually a process that the US Geologic Survey calls “sublimation”.