word choice - Can snow be dry? 


Disclaimer: There are a lot of questions packed in but their answers are interdependent.

Different textures of snow can be described as "wet" and "dry". Considering that water is the quintessence of wetness and snow is water, is it accurate to describe snow as being dry?


Is there a fallacy in the above syllogism because water in its frozen form is not water but ice and therefore even though snow is made of water it is not the case that it is water?


If so, is wetness a property that can only exist in non-freezing conditions?


Are all of the above questions predicated on the false assumption that the adjective "dry", when applied to snow is intended to be literal when in fact it is figurative?



Answer



Dry means (NOAD here, but others would give similar definition) “free from moisture or liquid”. Snow is a mixture of ice crystals (a solid form of water), liquid water, and some water vapour (usually in negligible amount due to the temperature). So, snow is dry if it's mostly composed of ice crystals, and wet if it has an important part of liquid water mixed in.


In that sense, wet is somewhat synonymous with slushy.


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