Posted on 01/30/2014 9:18:27 PM PST by Mad Dawgg
I live in the pristine boonies where people [including me] always used rain from the roof to fill dry wells and cisterns.
My snow was/is never dirty and until now, Gypsy always ate a *lot* of it whenever she got the chance.
:)
Did this years ago during my reckless youth. Same result.
Butane lighter, right?
Butane produces a sooty smoke. Try holding the flame under a steel item (a table knife will do). You will see the soot layer form quickly.
So, with your snow, you get the soot layering onto the snow (which doesn’t melt as fast with a point source as you might expect), and then the smell of the soot more or less cooking as you continue heating it.
Suggestion for a more realistic test for “fake” or contaminated snow: in a medium saucepan, place a small amount of water, just enough to cover the bottom (this to prevent damage to the pan— if it’s an old pan you don’t care about, skip that bit), place your snow sample— up to the capacity of the pan, and put over a low heat until melting start, and then up to high heat until it comes to a boil with steam etc. Best to use electric range if possible, to prevent any odor bias from a gas or propane burner.
If the steam is stinky or a residue forms in the pan, then alert us. Alex Jones might also be interested.
Personal non-asset-backed wager: the snow is made of very cold water, with nothing more in it than you would find in rainwater.
A match is also a very sooty burning point source. If anything, the results would look and smell worse than with the butane lighter.
Even packed hard, the snowball absorbed the water as the snow "melted", or it vaporized, and the butane soot stayed on the iceball.
Then I put the skillet on the burner, let it heat until it was liquid. The liquid was vaporizing, visibly, long before any bubbles from boiling occurred. When bubbles did form, they formed and burst on the bottom of the skillet, and never came to the surface like a regular boil.
I guess a real test would be to do a side-by-side stovetop test with snow in one saucepan and tap water in the other, and watch the difference in the behavior.
But it's late and my toes are cold.
d:^) get some sleep, y'all .. lol
“Something I noticed while out gathering the snow, only by the conspicuousness of its absence, are rabbit tracks.”
Owls are very hungry this time of year for their favorite food: rabbit - easy pickings against the white snow.
If you live in an area that has a lot of older homes with wood-burning fireplaces, that could account for sooty, flammable snow. I doubt if the killer nerd technocrats of the Evil Cabal are smart enough to poison all the snow around the country.
In the same vein , I saw a coyote chasing a roadrunner. The coyote missed the bird and plunged hundreds of feet to the valley floor. He got up and walked away with nothing but a disgusted look on his face.
I can’t believe this thread has gotten this far without the crazy hair guy....ITS ALIENS!
Who needs him when you have FReepers in pajamas running out in the dead of night, collecting snow to melt?
;D
The FR Night Crew® rulez!
Ha! this is true and even when we do get 'snow'-- it's more often sleet.
As a kid I can't tell you how often I was disappointed trying to catch pretty snowflakes to look at only to wind up with tiny ice pellets.
Well someone has to stay up and keep checking to make sure the Internet is working.
How would we know whether or not to ping the:
The "The INTERNET Isn't Working" ping list
This stuff is very important ya know...
"Clathrates have been found to occur naturally in large quantities. Around 6.4 trillion...tonnes of methane is trapped in deposits of methane clathrate on the deep ocean floor. Such deposits can be found on the Norwegian continental shelf in the northern headwall flank of the Storegga Slide. Clathrates can also exist as permafrost, as at the Mallik gas hydrate site in the Mackenzie Delta of northwestern Canadian Arctic. These natural gas hydrates are seen as a potentially vast energy resource, but an economical extraction method has so far proven elusive."
I noticed, hit it out of the park and gave up waiting for 'my turn'...LOL
I just checked. We had a little snow last night. My snow doesn’t do that. Somebody is getting some very strange precipitation or they are blowing smoke here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.