🌨️ Rain to Snow Calculator
Convert an amount of rain (liquid precipitation) into an estimated equivalent snowfall depth, based on typical air temperature.
Why rain and snow amounts aren’t the same
Snow is much less dense than liquid water, so a given amount of rain can produce a much larger depth of snow. The relationship between liquid precipitation and snow depth is called the snow-to-liquid ratio (SLR), and it depends heavily on air temperature: colder air generally produces drier, fluffier snow with a higher ratio.
How this calculator works
A commonly used rule of thumb is the “10:1 ratio” (1 inch of rain equals about 10 inches of snow) near freezing, but the actual ratio varies from about 10:1 in wetter, warmer snow up to 40:1 or more in very cold, dry conditions. This calculator selects a typical ratio for your entered temperature and multiplies it by the liquid precipitation amount to estimate snow depth.
This is a widely used meteorological approximation, not an exact forecast. Actual snow-to-liquid ratios depend on the full atmospheric profile, not just surface temperature, and can vary significantly storm to storm.