Myth or Fact? Can It Be Too Cold To Snow?

Old man winter is sure showing himself lately with all the cold air that we’re dealing with. I understand it’s February in Minnesota, but when you hear natives of the state say that they’re glad their car started this morning due to the cold, you know it’s been really cold. 

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That’s what happened to me yesterday, in the kitchen here at work, one of my co-workers said he was glad his car started when he climbed in. Then of course, he had to have the same thought again in the afternoon or evening when it was time to go home. 

There’s a threat of more snow coming in on Friday, or is there? What I mean is, “is it too cold to snow”? I heard this all the time growing up in North Carolina. Looking back on it now, I think it was just the older folks way of “poo-pooing” on the kids hopes for snow and no school. 

I heard the same phrase this week, when I was talking with someone and mentioned the possibility of more snow, and the fella said, “it’s too cold to snow”. 

That stayed on my mind, and I decided to try to find out if it was true. We have a working relationship with “Weatherology” in the cities. Meteorologist Cara Foster provides the weather for our morning shows and I reached out to her to get to the bottom of this topic. 

Whenever I have to send a question to Cara, I normally put in the subject line, "a stupid question from Dave Thomas". This time I felt like I was probably the only one who didn’t know the answer already, so I wrote “another stoopid question from Dave Thomas”.  

Cara is always so kind to make me not feel "less than" when I ask these questions, and her response this time made me feel better. “Ah, yes, a question and old as time, and one of my favorites to answer”.  

Simply put, Cara says, “no, it’s never too cold to snow”. She says that it all boils down to moisture, cold air can’t hold as much moisture as warmer air can. You can get accumulation but not likely larger amounts of snow when it’s colder. 

Cara does go onto say that there are many cases where there has been a layer above us that is warmer and that can create precipitation, or lake effect snow which prevalent in sub-zero temperatures.  

She also says that the atmosphere is complex and surprising and there’s not really an every-time black and white answer.   

I guess that explains why when we’ve had snow recently, it’s come on days that were warmer than the days where the temp flirted with zero or below. 

If you’ve been living your life believing it could be too cold to snow, I hope this helps, or it will give you fuel for your weather conspiracy theories.