Guide

Listen forWeather

Snow that squeaks underfoot on the coldest mornings

January to February

On the coldest winter mornings, packed snow squeaks or creaks under your boots instead of crunching. Near freezing it gives a soft crunch; weather educators say that once the snow itself is colder than about 14 F it squeaks or creaks, and in bitter cold the sound climbs higher.

Why this time of year

Squeaky snow needs two things at once: snow on the ground and a hard cold snap, most often on a clear morning after a frigid night. In eastern Massachusetts that comes only a few mornings each winter, mostly in January and February, so the right morning is worth catching.

How to notice it

  1. After a bitterly cold night, step onto snow that has been packed down, like a path or a sledding hill.
  2. Walk slowly and listen to each step: a squeak or creak means very cold snow, a soft crunch means snow nearer freezing.
  3. Take the same walk on a milder afternoon and compare the sound.
  4. Try fluffy new powder too: it tends to give a soft whoof, while snow that has settled for a while squeaks best.

Try this with kids: Bundle up and stomp ten steps on a packed path. Squeak or crunch? Make a guess about how cold it is, then check a thermometer.

Safety

  • On a morning cold enough for squeaky snow, keep the walk short, cover ears, fingers and faces, and come in if anyone's skin starts to sting or go numb.

Sources

  • cimss.ssec.wisc.eduUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison CIMSS WxWise educational page (university, read 2026-11-06). Gives the threshold: 'If the temperature of the snow is warmer than approximately 14F (-10C)' there is no sound, and colder than that 'the ice crystals beneath your boot are crushed making a squeaking, or creaking, sound.' NOTE: the threshold is SNOW temperature, not air. Its pressure-melting mechanism is contradicted by Physics Today (see corrections), so cite it for the threshold and the squeak/creak description only.
  • scientificamerican.comScientific American, Jim Nash, 2015-03-11 (secondary; quotes MIT materials scientist W. Craig Carter). Says the squeak 'is little studied and less understood'; 'The snow has to sit awhile in cold conditions and collapse slightly under its own weight before it will squeak'; squeaks are heard when snow 'falls through particularly cold air'. Carter's hypothesis is 'tiny bonds cracking' between sintered grains, which he calls 'still just in idea'. Supports: settled snow squeaks better than fresh powder, and the mechanism is unsettled.
  • physicstoday.aip.orgPhysics Today, Robert Rosenberg, 2005-12-01 (science magazine review of the research). Supports the correction that pressure melting is too weak: Bowden and Hughes found 'a skier's pressure on snow is insufficient to cause melting at low temperatures', and skate pressures reduce the melting point 'by only a few degrees'. A boot exerts far less pressure than a skate blade, so the 'boot melts a film' explanation should not be told to readers as fact.
  • news.ucar.eduUCAR news, Margaret LeMone (NCAR atmospheric scientist), 2012-02-16 (institutional, first-person observation). 'Near freezing, the snow gives the expected crunch, crunch' and 'as the temperature dips to well below 0F (-20C), the sound almost turns to cheep, cheep', 'a few octaves higher'. She writes that she has 'never found' an explanation that 'fully explained the higher pitch'. Supports the crunch-to-squeak change with cold and the unsettled mechanism.
  • ncei.noaa.govNOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, BOSTON LOGAN INTL AP (primary dataset, downloaded 2026-11-06). Column MLY-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH010 is defined in NCEI's documentation (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/normals-monthly/1991-2020/doc/Normals_MLY_Documentation_1991-2020.pdf) as 'Monthly number of days with minimum temperature <= 10F'; LSTH020 is the same at <= 20F. Average days per month, min <= 10F / min <= 20F: Nov 0.0 / 0.3, Dec 0.6 / 4.7, Jan 3.9 / 11.8, Feb 1.9 / 8.8, Mar 0.4 / 3.2. There is no 14F column; 14F falls between these two. Supports: deep-cold mornings on the coast are a few per winter, concentrated in Jan-Feb.
  • ncei.noaa.govNOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, WORCESTER RGNL AP (primary dataset, downloaded 2026-11-06; central MA, inland and higher, so colder than eastern MA, used only as an upper bound). Days min <= 10F / <= 20F: Dec 2.5 / 10.7, Jan 8.1 / 18.5, Feb 5.7 / 14.5, Mar 1.7 / 7.4.
  • mprnews.orgMPR News Updraft weather blog, Paul Huttner, 2010-01-05 (secondary). Corroborates the threshold: the effect occurs 'when the snow temperature is below about 14 degrees Fahrenheit', when 'the snow crystals break and crash into each other'. Same pressure-melting framing as CIMSS, so threshold only.

Checked against these sources on November 6, 2026.

In the guide for January, February

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