Today we’ll learn some vocabulary related to snow and ice. These two materials can take different forms. This article is part of my more comprehensive article on winter vocabulary in general that I published in Your American English Magazine – issue 1 (1/2022), which you can purchase here.
So, in this article we’ll be talking about snow and ice formations. In the article in Your American English Magazine I additionally cover winter vocabulary related to temperature, precipitations, accidents on ice, wintertime in general (how people and animals can spend it), heating, winter clothes, coping with snow and ice, moving on snow and the final stage of winter when spring is coming and the snow melts.
Snow and Ice Formations
Snow and ice can be found in different forms. If you look closer, you will see all the particular ice crystals, also known as ice needles. These are ice particles that float in the air in cold weather. A single ice crystal that has achieved a sufficient size becomes a snowflake. Snowflakes are soft pieces of frozen water that fall from the sky as snow.
Snow often accumulates where it falls. You can collect it and make snowballs. A snowball is a ball of snow that you can throw. Not all snow is good for making snowballs. In the picture you can see a snowball fight – a playful fight in which people throw snowballs at each other.
– Let’s have a snowball fight! – Kev suggested. And now they’re fighting.
You can also build a snowman, which is a figure made of snow that is shaped to look like a person.
Snowballs, and even more so snowmen, are artificial forms. But there are many natural forms of accumulated snow. One of them is a snowdrift. A snowdrift is a hill of snow that is formed by wind.
If you’re driving and there’s a snowdrift in front of you, you have to stop the car. Your car may also slide into a snowbank. A snowbank is a pile of snow especially along the side of a road.
We use the adjective snowy to describe sth that has a lot of snow or is covered in snow. We can have a snowy winter. Which was the snowiest winter in your life? You can also say snowy mountaintops, streets or fields.
If there is too much snow, you may get snowed in, which means unable to leave a place because a lot of snow is falling or has fallen so you are or blocked with snow. You can get snowed in at the hotel for a couple days. You can also say that a road was snowed in, so it’s blocked with snow. In a situation like this you can also use the adjective snowbound. If you are snowbound somewhere for a week, you can’t leave the place because of the snow blocking the roads, airports, etc. We then have snowbound roads or airports.
A snow day is a day when schools and businesses are closed because a lot of snow is falling.
Snow may cover the peaks of mountains. This covering cap of snow is called snowcap and we say the mountains are snowcapped, which means they have their tops covered with snow.
Sometimes you can see flat pieces of ice floating on water. These are ice floes.
Another ice formation are icicles. An icicle /ˈaɪˌsɪkəl/ is a hanging piece of ice formed when water freezes as it drips down from sth (such as a roof).
Finally, an icy patch is an area of ice that is surrounded by areas without ice. Icy patches may be dangerous if they are on a road.
So, these are the most common snow and ice formations. If you want to learn much more winter-related vocabulary, you’ll find it in issue 1 (1/2022) of Your American English Magazine.