El Paso, Texas — As I watched the snow fall in the Borderland on Sunday morning, I wondered whether snow melts when temperatures reach down into the 10s and 20s.
So I went to KFOX14 Morning News Meteorologist Brad Montgomery in search of the answer.
Brad told me that snow does indeed melt even when it's sub-freezing cold outside, especially if the area experienced warm weather in the days before the snow storm.
That's because the ground temperature can be substantially warmer than the air temperature and the Borderland saw afternoon highs in the 70s through most of last week. Even the high on Saturday, just as the winter storm was approaching, still reached 65 degrees.
That meant the ground was nice and warm as the snow started falling because of the heat it retained from the earlier warm weather.
Brad said he also noticed the snow wasn't piling up on roofs like it usually does because of our recent, warm weather.
In addition, meteorologists say the sun can still melt snow in the freezing cold because while its rays aren’t warming up the air all that much, the sun's visible light and UV rays are being absorbed by the snow, which causes it to melt.
Finally, the sun's angle is now higher than it was when winter started in December, which means we're getting more direct sunlight, and in turn, more snow melt.
