I fully realise this isn’t the sort of debate that will change the world but it’s a question I’ve been pondering for the last week or so, since the weather has been sub-zero again, and it is this: which is better, frost or snow?
People go crazy for snow, don’t they? At least they do in the UK. I don’t know the specifics for your particular geographic location; I imagine if you’re in Norway or, I don’t know, Alaska, then snow isn’t any great shakes. More a fact of life – something you tolerate because it is there for so much of the year.
But here in the UK, a forecast of snow is met with an almost unanimous sense of unbridled joy and excitement. (Apart from those working in the emergency services or those who have to travel to work, no excuses.) Snow turns nearly every adult into a child again and I will admit that there is something magical about waking up to a world that has been completely transformed, overnight, into a pure white canvas.
It is mandatory to take photos of this new pure white canvas – and don’t kid yourself that this is a new, social-media-fuelled phenomenon either: sifting through some old pictures at my Mum’s, there were dozens of yellowed photographs of “snow in the eighties”. Not even picturesque landscapes, either, just “the back wall in the snow”, “car on bricks, in the snow” and my favourite, “small children very far away with their backs turned to camera, in the snow”.
Snow has National Treasure status in the UK. It’s like Dame Judi Dench, or Sir Trevor McDonald: snow can do no wrong. Almost any full appearance by snow is celebrated and newsworthy and even if it is massively inconvenient it is still considered a thing of wonder.
The smooth, undulating curves of deep snow sitting atop thatched rooftops, like fondant icing. Flawless fields stretching featureless into the distance. Narrow streets in the City of London suddenly picture postcard perfect; the roads around Spitalfields turned instantly into the setting for a Dicken’s novel.
Bloody brilliant.
But I’m going to throw something out there: frost is better. Both visually and practically. Bear with me before you blow a gasket with fury; I know how revered Snow is and that I’m walking on thin ice, but I’m going to take you through an analogy that will explain my slightly outré assertion. It’s not a perfect analogy so you’ll have to be tolerant.
Imagine you have a beautiful face. (That’s the landscape. I realise not all landscapes are beautiful but just use your imagination. I told you to be tolerant of my analogy.) Wouldn’t it be a shame to completely obliterate that face beneath an entire, thick layer of completely opaque foundation? Yes it would.
(I can see this analogy collapsing in precisely twenty seconds yet I can’t seem to stop writing.)
Imagine you now have a makeup artist of supreme ability. They take out their brushes and they do a little gilding of the eyelids here, a dusting of some sort of light-blurring powder there. They lightly conceal and they daintily add the faintest hint of shimmer and when they are finished, the face is a masterpiece. Different, changed, but still – essentially – the face.
(Someone stop me, for the love of God!)
I think you’ve probably guessed what I’m at, here: snow is heavy foundation, frost is the magic touch of a makeup artist. I told you it was tenuous.
Look: snow is great. But it’s a big old clumsy blanket of whiteness dropped from above. There’s no nuance. It’s an absolute obliteration of the picture. Look at someone’s photograph of “the park in the snow”: it’s a plain white rectangle. Maybe with a tree trunk striking a knobbly scar through the middle. Frost, on the other hand, is nature’s artist. Glittering the tops of fence posts, gilding every tiny leaf and stone. Not only does it put a sort of filter over the world, desaturating it and adding a hint of very pretty ice-blue, it blurs and prettifies every single feature. Cars become sugar-coated churros, rooftops sparkle, the green is taken out of gardens and the grey is taken from the roads so that everything is a uniform silvery version of its former self. You can see what’s underneath, but it’s like seeing it all through a dream…
vs snow, which has just one dimension. Which is to throw a sheet over it all and be done. It’s lazy and it has no skill. If Frost is the meticulous magician then Snow is a caveman, just trundling along shouting “white! White! White!”
Ug.
On a practical level, snow is an absolute bastard. Especially if you live out in the sticks, but it also seems to stiff the city-dwellers too. If Snow visits for longer than day, you really know about it. You want him out by day two, once you’ve had the sledging fun and had a snowball in the face. He’s like the “crazy friend” who comes to visit, the one you met in Magaluf in the late nineties who drank pint glasses of tequila and had “knob” tattooed on his head. Fun for a few hours and then it’s just one almighty pain. Takes ages to get rid of, too. Melt….melt….melt….for f*ck’s sake just get on with it! Go home!
Frost is welcome almost any time. Frost arrives quietly, brings cake, has a cup of tea with you and then leaves by lunchtime. And even if she doesn’t (ha! Note that Frost seems to be female here), even if Frost has come for a little mini-break, then when you need to get on with something important she sits in another room and reads a book and you barely even know she is there. She doesn’t stop you driving, like Snow. Snow turns your car into a Death Mobile. He might feel solid and crunchy underfoot when you’re trampling up the sledging hill but don’t be fooled: he’s three pints of tequila followed by a twenty minute ride on a banana boat.
So, “Frost is better than Snow: Discuss”. I know that this will flare some tempers so let’s try and keep it sweet.
I am absolutely there with you: Frost is equally if not more beautiful, but much more manageable. And yet, for me, more magical at the same time in the way it transforms everything.
Brilliant Ruth, this cracked me
up esp the bit about a dodgy ‘friend’ from the Magaluf holiday.
Most definitely frost for me. Growing up in the UK when as a child let’s face it, you have zero responsibilities, I loved snow and loved seeing my dads snow board in the garage to shovel the drive. Now live in Sydney, Aust so we don’t get snow or frost but if you venture to say Orange or Mudgee in Winter and oh the joy of frost. Subtle, stunning on roses, trees, grass, the low soft light. It’s nuanced and beautiful.
Frost & snow have an evil interbred cousin not discussed here Ruth. The entity that is, hands up in horror….. screaming face emoji…… BLACK ICE!
That devil, that invisible witch. When you can feel it’s a bit nippy but everything looks a bit damp. Frost with a big ol’ hangover. She thought she’d taken of all that pretty gilding before bed, but all she’d done was smooshed it around so it wasn’t as obvious.
Of course, then us poor deluded humans either turn on the step to lock the door & find we’re doing the flailing, five pints of tequila, I’m still pished party dance, that ends badly, spreadeagled on the black ice, with nothing more than a bruised bum & ego. Worse we get unknowingly into the half tonne of what was a dressage horse yesterday but today the witch has decided it’s a fecking bucking bronco! No matter how many wheel drive you have they’re not going where you want them to. Winter tyres? All wheel drive? Black ice laughs in their face & kisses that crumpled metal & hopefully nothing worse.
So I vote for sunshine, rain, wind….. anything that’s above 5 degrees centigrade!
Hahaha! Yes, black ice is the unmentionable. x
Snow, very pretty when first laid until people start clomping about in it, then it gets slushy, dirty and unpleasant. Frost also pretty until it turns to ice, and you end up on your bottom outside your front door (or in my case outside Waitrose) after having done your own version of the Dying Swan dance trying to keep upright, and hearing a little boy saying ‘mummy, is that lady drunk’!!!!
Hahahahaha! God I hate walking on ice.
A brief reply to your lengthy essay- I concur.
Hahaha
I’m in Queensland Australia so, no chance of either. I spent 32 years in UK and 33 here and I have to say I don’t miss snow or frost…..but. on holiday in New Zealand a couple of years ago it snowed and I was a kid again! So excited! And I don’t think a bit of frost would have had the same thrill. Sorry Ruth
Fair enough! Also: am jealous, I long for some heat. I would move somewhere hot if I didn’t need to be close to family.
Well this made me hoot with laughter!!
Frost is the GOAT.
: )
Definitely Frost the end……
Snow, a fleeting day of winter wonderland, but when half thawed, a disgusting brown sludge death trap that freezes FOR DAYS – minus any cute animated snow men.
Frost, a light dusting of magic that has the good grace to sod off when it knows the party is over.
Team Frost all the way.
Precisely! Thank you Marie.
In Johannesburg we don’t get snow. We usually get frost. In a cold winter we can get it every night. It does look pretty but it burns the grass and the plants (unless you drape them in a funny white protective cloth). When I was young I used to think everywhere had dead brown grass in winter.
Yes that is true! I hadn’t thought about that particular side effect.
I am not sure… You can’t ski on frost… I hate driving on a unpredictable frosty road, I rather take on a snowy road – what you see is what you get… (Winter tyres fitted of course)
But I HATE snow slush with passion, it leaks into shoes, makes everything muddy including my kids… No thank you
So I vote frost for Mon-Fri life and give me some weekend snow for skiing or for just hiding inside with a warm cup of tea
Weekend snow! Snow to order. Sounds good!
Absolutely agree. Snow that lasts longer than 24 hours (& arrives on a work day) is the work of the devil. Everything is a right pain in the arse. But frost often brings bright blue skies, makes everything twinkle & has no irritating impact on keeping the world turning.
Yes, it does always seem bright and sunny with a frost, you’re right!
Can I have both?
I love how frost looks, but actually nothing beats how quiet everything becomes when snow is falling.
I will allow that, yes.
When is your book coming Ruth for you write so brilliantly ?
Getting there! : )
Agree. Frost every time. Snow is just an inconvenient nuisance.
I’m Canadian so as far as I’m concerned, Brits are a bunch of wusses when it comes to proper Winter weather. However I understand why Frost is better than Snow. The latter can require removal and gritting, by whom, one asks. Damn sure isn’t the local authority. Re driving, get some all season radials on your vehicle and Bob’s your uncle.
Haha! I think it’s because we don’t really GET any winter weather. So things like eg snow chains would be mostly pointless for the average person. But then when we need all the gear we just are woefully ill-equipped and are forced to moan about it all. : )
Frost is always better. Of course where I live 3 feet of snow in one day is not uncommon and I hate driving in it. Or shoveling it!
Where do you live Lisa? I mean broadly speaking, not in a creepy way. I’m not going to appear at your window.
As a pedestrian I am firmly team snow! You may prefer to drive on frost, but there is nothing more terrifying to me than a pavement covered in frost. Doesn’t matter how sensible your boots are, they’re no help to you here! Give me a thick covering of snow and my wellies every time!
IS frost bad to walk on though? I always think it’s a mere snippet of a crunch – is it the same as ice? Off to investigate! And full realising this might be the stupidest query I’ve ever had..
I was thinking, yes, but frost is an absolute bastard if you need to walk anywhere the council never grit the streets properly and if you need to go down a back road you’re taking your life in your hands. But on the whole, agree, frost, supremely pretty and disappears, eventually, with little fuss. Snow on the other hand, takes an age to leave after it’s lost its first flush of beauty. No one needs that brown slush in their life
Walking on any sort of ice gives me the ultimate fear. I feel another post coming on.
Love it and hugely agree frost is the fairer of the two
Funny I’ve been having these exams trying thoughts this week!! Frost gets my vote everytime. Looks beautiful and when it melts doesn’t leave sludge that’s around for weeks looking ugh !
Yesssss, team Frost. Go team Frost!
Oh crikey I was sold on your description of snow but then you compared it to frost and, well, it’s got to be frost hasn’t it! Because let’s face it pristine snow is beautiful until it turns grey, muddy and slushy and minging. FYI I also have those orange-y photos of snow in the eighties – ooh look the corner shop in snow
Hahaha, whole photo albums of snow!
I completely agree with you; frost, not snow. I l live in Wisconsin. We have to tolerate snow from October to March. “Summer” is six months of bad skiing.
But the only people here who love snow are the crazy-ass ice fishermen. They wait all year and save vacation days for the mid-February opening of the Sturgeon Season. They are grouchy and distracted from Feb. 1 onward, constantly refreshing the Forest and Fisheries website as they wait for the sacred day when the High Priests of Ice finally declare that the Gods of the Lake have chosen to make the ice thick enough.
Overnight, hundreds of Dodge Ram pickups appear on the iced-over (they hope*) Lake Winnebago, alongside outhouse-looking wooden fishing huts. The fishermen spend a week or more safety harnessed to the inside of these huts, hovering over a hole drilled into the ice and clutching electric spear guns, hoping to see the shadow of a sturgeon swim past.
I swear I’m not making this up.
If they manage to catch a fish using this bizarre method (the only legal one, through I’ve heard of a few clandestine pistols being deployed), they take it off to be weighed, hoping to win a prize (new pickup, usually). Then it’s off to a local smokehouse.
For the rest of the year, they will proudly offer every guest smoked surgeon with their Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Everyone takes a cracker or two, to be polite. And that’s it, because even if you love heavily smoked fish, smoked wild sturgeon is bloody awful. Greasy and stringy. Not to mention the infinite and seemingly random bones.
So yeah, snow. Good fun. Give me a pretty frost any day.
But I guess I don’t understand why England doesn’t get more snow, especially in the north. I think we’re roughly the same latitude? Maybe not. I’ve been reading too many Philippa Gregory novels, where Tudor messengers are riding their horses knee-deep in snow, going castle to manor house.
*Every year, someone waits a bit too long and pushes his luck and goes crashing through the thawing ice, mammoth truck and all. Or it’s teenagers sneaking through the “Danger! Ice road closed” barrier in their dad’s stolen car to do wheelies on the lake. Very exciting for the fire department’s Ice Rescue team.
Wow, this is amazing, I’d never heard of it! Thank you, a very enjoyable read. And I’m not sure why we don’t get more snow – Scotland probably gets much more….
Love the analogy! I’m Team Frost too. It’s like a luxury dark chocolate… refined, elegant…wrapped in a heavy matt-finish paper. All the cocoa kick without the sickly sweet chocolate box schmaltz.
Ooooh, nice! I’m enjoying this comment section immensely.