The dirty, dirty...

SNOW!! I love it. Every winter I sit, waiting and hoping for snow. Lots of it. Maybe it's the Colorado in me. The "schools canceled, let's go snowboarding" fun times of ol'. Oh, how I miss the days of beautiful white and fluffy snow. I've given those up for slush, dirt ice and salt stains on my pants. Oh, New York City, how the salt runneth over ye streets. I dare ask ma'am, where does ye salt rein from? The salt used on roads and streets is called Halite Salt. Halite (sodium chloride) comes from the Greek halos, meaning "salt" and lithos meaning "rock," and is in fact, better known as rock salt. Halite is called an evaporite because it is formed by the evaporation of saline water in partially enclosed basins. It is very common worldwide, deposited in solid underground masses, and as a dissolved solution in oceans and many arid-region inland lakes. Why salt on the roads? Ice forms when the temperature of water reaches 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). When you add salt, that temperature drops: A 10-percent salt solution freezes at 20 F (-6 C), and a 20-percent solution freezes at 2 F (-16 C). On a roadway, this means that if you sprinkle salt on the ice, you can melt it. The salt dissolves into the liquid water in the ice and lowers its freezing point. Well, I've learned something here.