What chemical bonds are present in snow

Question

What chemical bonds are present in snow and what allows snow to build up into a ball or even a snowman without instantly falling apart?

Answer 1

The chemical bonds that are present in snow are essentially the same as those present in liquid water (H2O), because after all, snow is frozen (solid) H2O. So, we have covalent bonds holding the two hydrogen atoms to the oxygen atom, and then there are hydrogen bonds acting as an intermolecular force holding the H2O molecules together.

Ice forms crystals that have a hexagonal lattice structure and in snowflakes, these tend to become flattened. The hydrogen bonding is still present in these crystals and each H2O molecule is surrounded by and hydrogen bonded to 4 others water molecules.

The reason snow can be "packed into a ball or a snowman" has to do with the lattice structure and geometry of the ice crystal. The crystals and interact and mesh together making an even larger crystal. The reason snow balls, etc. don't instantly fall apart or melt is based on the ∆H_fusion for ice. This value is approximately 334 J/g, i.e. it takes about 334 joules of heat energy to melt 1 g of snow, assuming it is at 0ºC. This is a lot of heat energy.