The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

[mickjetblue]

A couple of days ago, I noticed about 2 inches of snow on my 2 boats in the yard.

I checked the weather forecast, and it was supposed to warm up today. I figured I'd
watch the weather developments, and hoped that the snow would melt.

Well, a snow/sleet blizzard passed through the area, and dumped more snow/sleet
onto the boats. The temps did not warm up as much as was forecasted, and I now
had about 3" of sleet/ice on my boats. I very carefully used a long broom to remove
the sleet/ice mix, a little at a time. I could tell that the sleet/ice was very heavy, so
I wondered about the difference of weight between ice and snow. I tightened up my
tiedown ropes, which had some looseness in them, indicating some stretching in my
tarp and cover had taken place.

A couple searches on wiki answers, and I found out that a gallon of snow weighs
about 1.19 pounds, and a gallon of ice weighs about 7.65 pounds. So, if you think
that you have maybe 100 pounds of snow on the cover of you boat, if that was to
turn into ice, then the ice could weigh 640 pounds. At some increase in weight, the
cover/tarp would begin to stretch or tear. The given weights are approximate, and
given only to provide an idea of the weight difference between snow and ice.
The boat cover supporting structure could also be damaged from the weight.

If you see some snow on top of your boat cover/tarp, you might verify that it is snow,
and not an ice combination stressing your cover and boat. Could even cause a leak,
and then real damage.

Whatever it takes, preserve it to maintain the boating experience!

 

[CobiaXL]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

My boat has a nice boat cover on it but when i know its gonna storm,i take a tarp and throw over it with couple tie downs.When weather is done,just pull tarp off slowly to remove all the snow and ice and put tarp away till next storm..One easy way to remove the weight and know your safe.Just a thought..

 

[oops!]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

very tough question......

first of all.......being a canadian........i can tell you that there are many different kinds of snow.
the eskimoes in the high arctic have over 200 different names for snow.....these names describe "what kind" of snow it is.
some types of snow are so heavy that a shovel full can hurt you back.....while other light fluffy snow that has huge bulk weighs nothing.

we have a ski hill here that calls there snow "champaign powder" .....skiers come here from all over the world to experience the different snow.

so......to be short........the weight of snow varies greatly with each type......there is no standard.

the trick is to keep sweeping off your boat as much as you do the walks !

 

[PopsRacer]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

I read somewhere that Yellow Snow causes more damage.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

I had an elderly couple move in down the street a couple years ago from California(not an issue here...). The weekend they arrived we received 10"s of wet heavy "southern" snow, so much snow that their Uhaul was stuck.....BAD. Anyway a week later we received nearly 30"s of "northern" snow, a yard of which probably weighed 30lbs and nobody got stuck, I helped them and still do great people no matter where they are from. Snow depending on the water content can weigh very little or quite a bit just depends, Where I live if a Low sets up south of me I get wet heavy snow with a huge moisture content normally where as if the Low is north I get light fluffy crap snow(I like southern snow as it is better for sledding and snowball fights). The Elderly couple brings me a case of Corona each time it snows so its a win win!!

 

[Water logged]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

The weight of the snow to ice change on your boat would not increase if no new moisture was added. In fact it would decrease due to evaperation during the thaw refreeze cycle. 100 pounds of snow is 100 pounds of moisture and cannot ever be more than 100 pounds unless more moisture is added.

Glenn

 

[veritas honus]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

Any time you have snow on your boat's cover, it should be gently swept off. Even a little bit of weight will cause stress, and possibly damage. Just a little bit of snow can easily turn into a problem with a freezing rain, as you've learned. I hope your cover didn't sustain any damage. Water getting into your boat, no big deal. Water getting into your boat and then freezing in there can cause some serious problems. As already pointed out by oops! and Lipp, the only way to know how much a gallon of snow weighs, is to weigh it. Pure water weighs aproximately 8.35 pounds per gallon. When it freezes, air is introduced, lowering the weight to volume ratio. Standing water gets a little air introduced, lowering the weight a little. Falling precipitation gets a lot of air introduced, reducing the weight a lot. The colder it is, the lighter the snow. High winds at altitude, coupled with colder temperatures make for even lighter snow. To give you a good example, I spent one winter as a Snowmaker for a ski/snowboarding mountain resort in New York. At 32 degrees, you can make snow; but it's "slop". Wet and sloppy. Until it gets down to 26 degrees, we wouldn't make any snow. There was no point. Manmade snow is nowhere near as good as natural snow; but in sub-zero temperatures, you can make some really beautiful stuff.
Hope I didn't chew your ear off, and I hope this gave you a little better perspective.

 

[mike343]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

100 lbs of snow is not going to to turn into 640 lbs of ice without an additional 540 lbs of water. Snow is frozen water as is ice.

 

[shrew]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

As stated, the key here is that a Gallon of snow will not turn into a Gallon of ice. Take a Gallon of snow, then melt it, then freeze it. You'll end up with about 1 cup or less of ice. If you're really worried about snow and ice loads, then don't use a tarp. Shrink wrap the boat instead. Plenty of folks successfully use tarps, but consider this, I've never seen a boat yard or professional tarp a boat. They all shrink wrap.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

How you protect a boat from the elements is a matter of 1) expense, 2) where the boat is stored, 3) size of the boat, and 4) severity of the elements you are trying to damage from. Obviously boat yards don't enough folks on staff to keep snow and ice cleaned off the boats stored there. Hence the almost essential need for shrink wrapping. If the boat is a smaller craft (20 feet or less for example) and it is stored in ones side or back yard, tarps can be very effective provided the proper "tenting" techniques are employed. The steeper the tent the better it works. PVC pipe makes a great framework. Some folks boat on a limited budget and shrink wrapping is out of the question. If a boat is stored somewhere where the owner can't get to it on a regular basis to check it, then shrink wrapping makes sense. In many parts of the country that actually see little sleet, ice or snow, one again can use any technique that works. It doesn't have to always be the most expensive.

 

[JBF 1962]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

Kinda envious of you guys who can keep your boats at home over the winter, but, on the flip side, I have a good excuse to go up to the lake from time to time to hang out and clear off the ice/snow, often, there's a beer involved too...

 

[dingbat]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

Plenty of folks successfully use tarps, but consider this, I've never seen a boat yard or professional tarp a boat. They all shrink wrap.

That's only becouse your paying to make life easy on them and they'remaking the profit.

I don't know a single "professional", including the owner of a boat yard, that shrink wraps their private boats. The only boats we see shrinked wrapped are the "Weekenders" as we like to call them.

A couple searches on wiki answers, and I found out that a gallon of snow weighs
about 1.19 pounds, and a gallon of ice weighs about 7.65 pounds. So, if you think
that you have maybe 100 pounds of snow on the cover of you boat, if that was to
turn into ice, then the ice could weigh 640 pounds

What weighs more? 100 pounds of lead or 100 pounds of feathers?

The density of your snow is #1.19 per gallon. The density of your ice is #7.65 per gallon.

Your 100 pounds of snow equals roughly 84 gallons (#100/1.19) of snow or 13 gallons (#100/7.65) of ice. In order to get to 640 pounds, you would need 49 gallons of ice or 319 gallons of snow. Not sure how that would work.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

shrink wrapping is relatively new. I'm sure they had snow falling on boats before they had shrink wrap, and the means to deal with it. I don't know how feasible it is to re-use shrink-wrap, but it seems incredibly wasteful to me--and another barrel of oil bought from the Arabs.

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

I think the OP needs to differentiate between snow/ice volume and snow/ice weight. The gallon of snow (volume) weighs less than the gallon of ice. However, 10lbs of snow weighs the same as 10lbs of ice. Ice is just much more dense allowing more weight per unit volume than snow.

 

[shrew]

Re: The weight of snow versus the weight of ice.

That's only becouse your paying to make life easy on them and they'remaking the profit.

I don't know a single "professional", including the owner of a boat yard, that shrink wraps their private boats. The only boats we see shrinked wrapped are the "Weekenders" as we like to call them.

You're making some assumptions here. You're assuming I pay someone to shrinkwrap my boat, when I actually own my shrinkwrap gun and buy shrink wrap by the roll. I do the job myself. I keep my boat in a yard with no services, so nobody is making any money or saving labor from me. You're also assuming that the rest of the country gets the same snowload as Maryland. I don't boat in Md., so I couldn't say what the standard is down there. Up here in Northern New England we get a good deal of snow. It is rare for people to use boats year round, so regardless of how much the boat is used during the boating season, most put their boats on the hard and it is very common to shrink wrap. Not everyone shrink wraps, but many, many do. The majority of boats in the boat yards are shrink wrapped when I drive by them.