Snow

Also called snow icon, snowfall, heavy snow

Forecast icon on a weather app or a public forecast table.

Snow meaning

Snow, as a forecast icon, means snow is the precipitation expected in that period. Snow showers, sleet, and the snowman character are different marks.

At a glance

System: Forecast icon, with a station-plot note
Used for: Expected snow
Not the same as: Snow showers, sleet, hail, or a snowman

A forecast icon for expected snow. Not a snow shower, not sleet, and not a snowman.

The name. Snow, heavy snow, snow showers, and flurries are separate WWIS labels.

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Where it comes from

WWIS lists snow and heavy snow apart from snow showers, flurries, blowing snow, and blizzard. The Met Office prints light snow, heavy snow, and snow showers by day and night. MetService describes snow as ice crystals. That sentence is about its icons. A station plot’s present-weather sign for snow is an observation, not this forecast picture. The snowman and the snowflake are Unicode characters.

The line drawing is original to this cabinet. It is not an agency logo, a vendor icon, or the emoji for the same idea.

Weather

What it means

Crystals are expected to reach the ground as snow. The icon does not grade the accumulation, unless the service has printed light or heavy as a separate icon. It does not mean a shower that will stop in minutes. That wording is the snow-shower page. Hail is ice from a convective cloud, not this fall of crystals.

Variants

Light, heavy, blizzard

WWIS lists heavy snow, and also blizzard and blowing snow, as further labels. Apple lists heavy snow and blizzard together on one of its lines. Those are not one phenomenon. This page does not draw each of them.

Questions

What does a snow icon mean on a forecast?

Snow is expected in that period. WWIS keeps it apart from snow showers, flurries, and heavy snow.

Is a snowflake emoji a snow forecast?

No. The snowflake and the cloud-with-snow character are code points. Vendors draw them as they like. The forecast icon is a weather service’s summary.

Often confusedSnow showerA snow shower is the showery form, the way a rain shower is not steady rain.

Often confusedSnowmanThe snowman is a Unicode character. It does not forecast snow.

Near this

Sources

Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.

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Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.

symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 18 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.