What are theTDS readings of the snow and rain in your areas? I tested the snow in my front yard today and was surprised to get 32. I will test in some other areas around town too.
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I will check tomorrow on my way out the door! (snow)
That’s just white snow?
Yep, just white snow.
I bet the H2O molecules picked up the ppm from dust particulates on its way down from the cloud to the ground. I was told liquid water is pure in the atmosphere.
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Today’s measurements: 17 front yard, 8 back yard. Yesterday’s 32 was probably due to contamination from the plastic container for the snow. That container is what I put kitchen water in to water the plants. Today I realized what my mistake was so I put the snow in new plastic sandwich bags.
I thought rain water was supposed to be the purest of pure?Thats what i was always lead to believe anyway.
I’ve never thought about it but it makes sense. Snow would trap junk in the air where rain will push it down.
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It had to come into contact with the ppm at some point along the way.
Or just pp…
Yeah, I’m a seven year old…
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I dunno. I’m sure there’s a million molecules in a drop?
Great post.
"Snow is crystallized water, meaning it’s actually more pure than most types of precipitation. If you think about how snow forms in the atmosphere, it’s essentially frozen distilled water, crystallized around a tiny particle, so it might even be more pure than the stuff coming out of your faucet.
Campers and mountaineers all over the world use snow as their primary water source without incident. Even if you live in a city, you can eat clean snow.
Snow does fall through the atmosphere before hitting the ground, so it can pick up dust particles and other impurities in the air. (JaredAl hit it on the head ) If the snow has been falling a while, most of these particles have already washed out. The biggest consideration for snow safety is where and how you collect the snow."
That was a quick google search. Seems to make sense that a light snow would have a larger TDS number than a heavy snow. I would guess you would take it off the top of the snow instead of the stuff that fell first if you were testing it?
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I need to get samples from fresh falling snow. It is very possible that my samples had airborne residue deposited on them.
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snow sits there and and quickly gets contaminated by the air which is filthy thanks to our contributions. years ago they found significant amounts of lead from gas at the top of mountains previously beleived to be pristine.
i have measured the tds of rain here (winnipeg) several times and it is always 11 or 12 after running across a roof, along the gutter and down the spout.
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We had a cloudburst so I checked the runoff from the roof. 2 PPM the first time, 9 the second and 8 the third. My rinse bucket was down a couple of gallons so I put it under the runoff and after about a gallon of runoff it was at 50. The normal municipal PPM that I filled the bucket with is 72-77 PPM.
Edit: I should clarify that the bucket already had several gallons which was probably at 72-77 PPM before it collected the rainwater to drop it to 50 PPM. Once ti was full the reading was 17 PPM.
I’m sure the readings will vary from roof runoff (contaminants) compared to the first few minutes of straight rain from the sky to 20 or 30 minutes of straight rain from the sky. The first few minutes would have whatever is in the air.
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So why don’t you anymore?
