Beside the Stream

Here’s a corral at 8500 feet after a long storm dropped six feet of snow. 

Here is that same corral exactly three weeks later. 

Two or three feet of snow has disappeared into thin air.  At high altitude, we have lower atmospheric pressure.  When the sun shines, the molecules on the surface of this powdery snow get excited and leap into the air, moving directly from a solid to a gas in a process called sublimation. 

It’s like magic: the snow disappears directly into the air without melting.  Gone baby gone.