Over the weekend, we enjoyed a rare event in our part of the country - a snowfall!  The huge fluffy white flakes quickly covered the ground with a sparkling white blanket.  How beautiful!  How beneficial, as well!  As a gardener, I know that every time it snows, the soil in my garden gets a little richer.  This happens because the snow captures nitrogen from the air as it floats through it and deposits it into the ground, acting as a fertilizer. 

Dr Donald D. Young explains other benefits of snow in this excerpt from his book, Weather and the Bible.  Published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, used by permission.  This book is available for purchase in the Museum Store

What are some useful properties of snow?

Snow blankets large regions of land each winter season, changing the landscape and often closing roads and schools.  Since both water and snow-forming temperatures are very rare in the universe, falling snow may be a unique blessing to the earth, unknown anywhere else.  Among the many benefits of snow, four will be mentioned here.

First, snow provides a slow, measured supply of water to underground water reservoirs.  As snow slowly melts, the liquid percolates downward into the water table.  This is especially true of large snow accumulations at high elevations.   In contrast, rainwater is often quickly carried away as surface runoff, with accompanying erosion.  As everyone knows, a permanent supply of fresh water is essential to life, and snow is an especially suitable provider. 

Second, a snow cover insulates the ground during cold weather.  Studies have shown that nighttime temperatures can be more than twenty degrees warmer beneath a layer of protective snow.  This insulation keeps the ground from freezing to great depths, an important safeguard for the water table that prevents widespread permafrost.   A blanket of snow also protects small animals such as mice, which must remain active during the winter.  They often construct a maze of tunnels under the snow.  Such creatures are part of the food chain, and their winter survival is necessary to many other creatures.

Third, falling snow is an excellent purifier of the air.  Every snowflake captures floating dust particles as it begins its growth.  As the snow falls, it further sweeps up other contaminants in the atmosphere.  Both snow and rain thus provide us with fresh air.  The whiteness of snowflakes is a suitable metaphor for God's cleansing of our sin (Isa. 1:18).

Fourth, it is true that every snowflake is uniquely different.  In this way snow shows the creative glory of God, just as it is also seen in every other aspect of nature.  The heavens declare God's glory (Ps.  19:1), and so do snowflakes.