Snow’s Secret Garden

When it comes to the seasons, we often associate life with spring, not winter. Depending on where you live, winter brings a barren landscape, hibernating animals, and snow. But even snow harbors its own microscopic garden of life that we have only just unearthed within the last decade. It might look different from a field of wildflowers, but it’s cultivated by the same Creator.

A layer of freshly fallen white stuff may look pristine, but it’s actually home to a hidden ecosystem teeming with algae, fungi, and bacteria. Where do these microbes come from? Some are swept up into the atmosphere and then fall back to earth. Others may sleep in the soil until a snowfall when they spring to life.

Researchers have discovered that microbes in snow, specifically bacteria, may even sometimes form snowflakes. When bacteria are blown up into the atmosphere, water molecules cluster around these microbes to form ice crystals.

Snow’s microscopic ecosystem of algae, fungi, and bacteria could be helping maintain a healthy biosphere on earth. We know these microbes play a role in cycling nutrients and carbon, and we’re still learning what else they do. The more information we harvest from snow’s secret garden, the more we marvel at God’s handiwork. Despite their differences, both spring and snow remind us of the Creator of life.

Snowflake Seeds

Snowflakes form around a particle—anything from a speck of dust to a microbe like bacteria—which makes them unique from sleet and hail. Sleet is made of frozen raindrops, and hail is made of sleet droplets that collect water as they fall.

Watermelon Snow

Algae can turn fallen snow different colors including green, brown, and even pink. “Watermelon snow” is pink because of ice-loving algae (Chlamydomonas nivalis) that blooms when the sun heats up, turning the snow a rosy hue. Some people say this snow even smells like watermelon.