LOGAN, Utah (ABC4) — Utah is known for having the greatest snow on earth. It’s light, fluffy and powdery. A perfect combination for those hitting the slopes. New research out of Utah State University may prove that part of what makes it so great is truly something electrifying.
It’s true, Utahns love a fresh powder day. However, creating the greatest on earth may take more than just water and cold air.
“We know that those dust particles and the ice that crystalizes off them can be charge carriers,” USU undergraduate physicist Joe Cooney told ABC4.
That’s right. Utah’s snow may be a product of charge carriers, as in electricity.
“It helps us to see how many different factors can play a role in very natural processes,” Cooney stated referring to his research. “They’re usually a lot more complicated than we give them credit for and we have to be mindful of that when we try to make changes with the atmosphere.”
Cooney grew up in Missouri. After moving to Logan to attend USU, he became fixated on Utah’s snow. In a climate that is one of the driest in the United States, he wanted to better understand how the state can get so much quality snow. Under the guidance of USU’s Department of Plants, Soils and Climate, he began using a computer simulation to learn how water molecules form into ice crystals.
He found that water molecules align differently under electric fields and attach to dust particles. Along the Wasatch Front, atmospheric electricity is in no short supply.
“Electricity in clouds normally comes about when air is moving vertically up and down and those turbulent interactions cause, kind of, like a demolition derby of the water droplets and the ice crystals that are present in those clouds,” Assistant State Climatologist Dr. Jon Meyer explained. He noted that this normally happens in the summer when the air is hot. This, he said, often leads to lightning.
However, something similar happens in the winter thanks to Utah’s mountains which force strong winds up and down their rock facades. Dr. Meyer added: “And all of a sudden, we have a battery in the clouds and that’s what creates thunder snow.”
These winter storms (strong winds along the Wasatch Front) can charge dust particles. The dust then attracts water in the air and speeds up the formation of ice crystals. These electric atmospheric events may even lead to increased snowfall.
Dr. Meyer told ABC4 that looking at these electrical storms on the molecular level could prove useful. “Joseph’s taking it to the next level in trying to understand if there is a way we could take advantage of this and potentially increase the amount of snowfall that Utah gets,” he stated.
While there appears to be a positive relationship between mountain-made electricity and snowfall, there may also be a catch that falls more on the negative side.
“If you have a lot of those dust particles and not enough water molecules, the water seems to tend to get split up, basically, between the dust particles,” Cooney explained. “And so, none of them can really become of a size to fall out of the atmosphere and become precipitation.”
Dr. Meyer noted that there is a fine balance that must be met for these storms to produce snow. Therefore, increased air pollution and dust (including dust blown off the drying Great Salt Lake) could be stifling some of these storms from producing some of the greatest snow on Earth.
