
How Much Rain Does it Take to Make 3 Inches of Snow in Louisiana?
As of this report, the official temperature at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Lake Charles, Louisiana stands at 29 degrees. That is below "freezing". In our world, we set the temperature in which water begins to turn to ice as our "freezing" indicator. And that measurement has served us well over time. After all, when water starts freezing, that's when we seem to have our biggest issues with winter weather.
When it comes to moisture, it doesn't matter in what form, we want to know about it. During the summer months, we curse the moisture in the air in the form of high humidity. When the heat and humidity of a summer day get to be more than Mother Nature can stand, that's when we get afternoon thunderstorms.
Sometimes the raindrops from those thunderstorms can be tossed so high into the atmosphere that they freeze and keep freezing until they eventually fall to the ground as hailstones. We generally measure hail in circumference size as opposed to a more linear method of measuring as we do with rain or snow.
Hail can be damaging in its own way. It can beat up your car's exterior and even fall with such force that it breaks windshield and/or back window glass on the vehicle. And if you're caught outside in it, those falling rocks of ice can be rather painful and create a large welp on unprotected skin.
The relationship between rain and snow is a lot less dramatic. The rule of thumb used by most forecast outlets is this. One inch of rain would be equal to ten inches of snowfall. So, in the case of South Louisiana's forecast for Tuesday where three to five inches of snow are expected, if it was just rain, we'd be looking at rainfall amounts of half an inch to three-quarters of an inch.
Now, aren't you glad we don't get snow during hurricane season? Can you imagine what 100 inches of snow would look like? That's what you might see if you experienced freezing conditions and a "10-inch" rainfall. I am sure there are places where that happens. I am just grateful this is not one of those places.
But if we do get significant snow, there's always time for a sled right, right? Oh yeah, this is Louisiana, we are missing the hills, aren't we?
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Gallery Credit: Kat Mykals
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