World Snow Day

What the day is

World Snow Day is held on the third Sunday in January, so the date moves each year. It is organized by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation as part of a campaign to bring children to the snow, aimed at four to fourteen year olds, with member clubs and resorts running free or low-cost events.

Origin and background

The motivation is partly self-interested and openly so. Snow sports depend on people learning them young, and participation has been under pressure from cost, from urbanization, and from the sheer logistical difficulty of reaching snow for most families. A sport that is expensive to try is a sport that narrows.

The larger pressure is the snow itself. Reliable snow cover is retreating upward in altitude and shortening in duration across most mountain regions, and low-lying resorts have been the first to close. Artificial snowmaking has partly absorbed this, at considerable cost in water and energy, and it has its own limit: it requires cold air, so it fails in exactly the warm winters it is meant to compensate for.

Snow itself repays attention. It is not frozen rain, which is sleet. Snow forms when water vapor turns directly to ice around a nucleus in cloud, and the crystal shape that results is set by the temperature and humidity it grows in, which is why the same storm can deliver fine powder and heavy wet flakes on different days. Fresh snow is mostly air, which is why it muffles sound so effectively, absorbing it in the spaces between crystals.

How to take part

• Find a local event. Many clubs run genuinely free introductory sessions on this day.
• Take a child out in snow of any depth. It does not require a mountain.
• Look at fresh snow through a magnifier before it settles, which most people never do.
• Borrow or hire equipment for a first attempt rather than buying.
• Check the actual date each year, since it moves with the third Sunday.