posted
At my Elementry school, we used to spend all 3 recesses rolling snow into big balls then rolling it down our hill. I jumped on one once and fell off, but didn't get squooshed. I did get the wind knocked out of me, and after that, no one jumped on it again, and we made sure no one was in the way.
"Then why did you continue doing it?"
Glad you asked. We liked the explosion at the bottom of the hill, which was about a 15 foot slope.
Posts: 116 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
A cubic metre -- same as a ~1.24metre/~48.8inch diameter sphere -- of water weighs one tonne/1000kilograms/2200pounds. The thing about rolling snowballs is that the bigger it gets, the more the snowball's own weight compresses the snow that it rolls over and picks up. Snow sticky enough to make good snowballs can be packed to a density of 300kilograms per cubic metre: ie a 1.47metre/4foot10inch tall snowball could weigh as much as half a ton. Roll a snowball big enough and the it's exterior density approaches that of névé, 500kilograms per cubic metre. So any snowball that's over 1.24imetres/48.8inches in diameter could be hastily*described as "half a ton".
And yep. Get snow and a group of kids together often enough, and eventually, at least once, they'll agree to "Let's see how big a snowball we can roll." And once that happens, they don't tend to quit until the snowball is taller than they can reach.
* Though probably wrongly until the snowball is over 1.47metre/4foot10inch tall; unless the some of the original snowball has melted, and the meltwater soaked the remaining portion of the snowball and then refroze.
I remember making snowmen big enough that we needed to assemble them with a ladder. That was usually when the cousins were together, it would have been too heavy for just dkw BpW & me. And one time we were determined to make a huge one, and we got the snowballs so big there was no way we could stack them, so we rolled two next to each other and made a snow elephant instead. Those were easily big enough to cause serious damage if they had been rolling down a hill.
posted
My guess is that the kid jumped in front of the snowball to try to stop it, and tripped. While it is easy to start rolling a snowball, you start with a small load. Gradually&continuously, its weight and therefore forward momentum increases.
Kinda like the "strong man" stunt they pull where the dude braces himself against a wall and holds a car in place while the tires are spinning&burning. It works cuz the car ain't got no momentum. Have the car free to accelerate for a second beforehand, and any "strong man" foolish enough to jump in front of it is just gonna be shoved or run over by the car.
Same with the giant snowball: once ya get it rolling, it's a LOT harder to stop quickly. What probably happened is that the kid didn't know that.
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