#freezing level

Landscape Language

Snow level (noun) – The altitude at which snow turns to rain

Can you spot the snow level in this photo of Eagle Peak? Snow level, the altitude at which snow turns to rain, is easy to confuse with freezing level. Freezing level is the point at which precipitation falling from the much colder upper atmosphere warms to the temperature of freezing: 32 degrees F. Why aren’t freezing level and snow level the same? Below freezing level, snow starts to melt but it takes time to fully melt. When snow becomes rain, that is the snow level. On average, there can be about 1,000 feet (300 m) between freezing level and snow level! Longmire is often right on the edge of snow level.

I’m back in Scotland!

Ciao everybody! After about a week in Milan, where my family lives, my boyfriend and I are now back in Scotland. I hand’t been there so close to summer in almost three years, and the weather was exceptionally hot, but I wasn’t the only one sweating like a fountain in the subtropical humid heat. 

In the past few days the freezing level jumped above 5000 m (~16404 ft), which means there was no safe place left in Italy for permanent glaciers, as the highest peak in the Alps -and in Europe!- the Monte Bianco/Mont Blanc measures 4808 m, 15774 ft. Really not good.