How to make a perfect snowman (or snow-woman)

We never gave it much thought — pack a good, firm snowball and roll it around the yard until big enough for a base. Repeat two more times. Stack one on top of another.

Boom. Snowman.

But that doesn’t fly in the modern world, where you can find YouTube videos and 14-step how-to articles on snowman-building. And if you were interested in such things, snowman-building does involve a bit of science.

Case in point: Snow needs to contain three to five percent liquid water in order to be malleable and gluey enough to hold shapes, says the New York Times. The perfect snow can be found around 32 degrees Fahrenheit in regions closer to an ocean, like the Northeast or the Sierra Nevada.

Then there’s a concept called sintering, or patting. If you pat the snow as you go, you compact it and squash individual snowflakes, causing melting around the edges. As they refreeze, they bond.
This makes the snow a lot more solid — and your snowman a lot more sturdy.

A few more tips:

* Remember to face your snowman away from the sun, unless you were going for the melted face look.

* Pack extra snow around the base to give it more stability.

* Flatten the tops of the bottom snowballs so they’re easier to stack. Spheres are also a good shape to help prolong melting because less surface area is exposed to the sun.

* Try to roll the snowballs around the area you plan to place the snowman, then stick him in the middle. Avoid building a snowman on a driveway, which absorbs heat (does that even need a reminder?).

* Aim for a diameter ratio of 3:2:1 from bottom to top — like three feet, two feet, one foot.