By Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen, December 29, 2014
It’s been snowing as you walk through your neighbourhood, and you pause to
notice the wonderfully soft blanket of quietude that has accompanied it. You
wonder if perhaps the weather has kept pedestrians and cars at home, but no,
that doesn’t seem to be the case. Yet it is so very hushed outside. Not to put a
damper on the romantic postcard scene, but the serene atmosphere can be
explained by physics, as pockets of air in the fallen snow, similar to those
found in acoustic tiles in offices, concert halls or recording studios, absorb
sound waves. In freshly dug snow tunnels at the South Pole, the sound reduction
is so drastic that people who are more than about five metres apart have to
shout to hear each other. via
How winter works: The science of skating, sledding and snowballs | Ottawa
Citizen.