The sun is setting on a chilly Monday in Little Rock, The white stuff has made its rare appearance in Arkansas's Capitol city, so let's take a moment to consider snow from a structural engineering perspective.
Snow loads have been codified for several years now, and if you dig into the building code a little, you'll find the weight of snow is codified also. For those that are curious, it's a function of ground snow load (depth), with a little extra on top. The code equation is:
Density = 0.13 pounds x ground snow load (in pounds per square foot) + 14 pounds per cubic foot. In the case you live somewhere where snow gets REALLY deep, there's an upper limit of 30 pounds per cubic foot for the equation.
So, if you're reading this in Little Rock, the snow density (by building code) is 0.13 pounds x 10 pounds per sqaure foot + 14 pounds per cubic foot = 15.3 pounds per cubic foot.
No wonder shoveling it is so hard!
[Postscript: Snow experts should note that these values are derived for the convenience of engineering design for snow drifts on building structures. The weight of actual snow in the real world can - and will - vary.]