Winter Trivia
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Winter is more than cold weather, and this quiz covers the whole season in 190 free questions with answers: why the Earth has seasons at all, what makes a snowflake six-sided, the coldest temperature ever recorded, the animals that freeze solid or sleep through it, and the winter solstice festivals people have kept for thousands of years, from Stonehenge and Yaldā to Hanukkah and Chinese New Year. There is also the fun side: Groundhog Day, the tallest snowman ever built, curling stones and bobsleighs, the Iditarod, Frozen, Narnia, The Shining, Fargo and the heatwave that produced 'Let It Snow'. Roughly a third of the questions are easy enough for kids and classrooms, and the rest climb to winter trivia for adults, the sort of records and history that settle a pub-quiz round. Every answer has been checked against a documented source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation after you answer.
30 of 190 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01When the Northern Hemisphere has its winter at Christmas, which of these countries is having summer?
Australia
Australia lies south of the Equator, where the seasons run the other way round: schools break up for the long holidays just before Christmas, and the big meal is often served cold.
Q 02Meteorologists in the Northern Hemisphere count winter as which months?
December, January and February
Meteorological winter is December, January and February, the three coldest months on average; astronomical winter starts later, at the December solstice, and runs to the March equinox.
Q 03What causes the seasons, including winter?
The tilt of Earth's axis
The tilt of Earth's axis, about 23.5 degrees, means each hemisphere spends half the year leaning away from the Sun, when its sunlight arrives lower in the sky and for fewer hours.
Q 04What is the name for the point in Earth's orbit, reached each January, when it is closest to the Sun?
Perihelion
Perihelion falls in the first week of January, about two weeks after the December solstice, so Earth is some three million miles nearer the Sun in northern midwinter than in July.
Q 05The winter solstice, the Northern Hemisphere's shortest day, usually falls on which dates?
21 or 22 December
The winter solstice usually falls on 21 or 22 December, when the noon Sun is lowest in the northern sky; daylight grows from then on, even though the coldest weeks are still to come.
Q 06The winter solstice sunrise shines through a roof-box at which Stone Age tomb site in Ireland?
Newgrange
Newgrange catches the light for about 17 minutes at dawn, when it runs down the passage to the inner chamber, and a yearly lottery decides who gets to stand inside.
Q 07Snow crystals of every size and pattern share the same basic symmetry because of what?
The hexagonal structure of ice
The hexagonal structure of ice: water molecules lock into six-sided rings as they freeze, so crystals grow as six-sided plates and six-armed stars.
Q 08Guinness lists the largest snowflakes ever reported, in Montana in 1887, as how wide?
15 inches
15 inches (38 cm) is the width Guinness lists for flakes reported at Fort Keogh in January 1887; such giants are clumps of many snow crystals that collide and stick together as they fall.
Q 09Which photographer captured more than 5,000 snowflakes through a microscope, starting in 1885?
Wilson Bentley
Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer, caught each flake on a black board, lifted it onto a glass slide with a broom straw and photographed it before it could melt.
Q 10Earth's lowest directly recorded air temperature, -89.2 °C, was measured in 1983 where?
Vostok Station, Antarctica
Vostok Station, Antarctica, recorded -89.2 °C on 21 July 1983, the lowest directly measured air temperature; satellite-derived surface readings near -98 °C on the East Antarctic plateau do not count as official records.
Q 11At what temperature do the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales read the same number?
-40
-40 is the crossover: setting F equal to C in F = 1.8C + 32 gives C = -40, the one reading where a Canadian and an American agree without converting.
Q 12The wind chill index estimates how fast the wind strips heat from what?
Exposed skin
Exposed skin is all the index describes: wind cannot push a car radiator or a water pipe below the actual air temperature, it only gets them there faster.
Q 13Inside the Arctic and Antarctic circles, what is the winter period when the Sun never rises above the horizon called?
Polar night
Polar night is rarely pitch black: in Tromsø, Norway, where the Sun stays down for weeks in midwinter, midday still brings a few hours of twilight.
Q 21Which is the only penguin that breeds during the Antarctic winter, with males incubating an egg on their feet?
Emperor penguin
Emperor penguin males balance the single egg on their feet for about two months without eating, huddling together and taking turns in the warm middle of the pack.
Q 22Among deer, what is unique about reindeer antlers?
Females may grow antlers
Females may grow antlers, and they keep them through winter until their calves are born, so in midwinter it is the big bulls, which shed theirs after the autumn rut, that go bare-headed.
Q 23St Bernard dogs became famous at a monks' hospice on an Alpine pass for doing what job?
Rescue work
Q 14The 'borealis' in aurora borealis comes from the name of the ancient Greek god of what?
The north wind
The north wind was Boreas, whose name gives 'borealis'; Athenians built him a shrine after crediting him with wrecking a Persian fleet in a storm.
Q 15Roughly what fraction of an iceberg's volume floats above the water?
About one-tenth
About one-tenth: ice is roughly nine-tenths as dense as seawater, so some 90 percent of an iceberg sits below the surface, which is where 'tip of the iceberg' comes from.
Q 16Pink 'watermelon snow' seen on mountains and glaciers is caused by what?
An alga with a red pigment
An alga with a red pigment tints old snow, a colour Aristotle noted more than 2,000 years ago; the dark blooms soak up sunlight and make glaciers melt faster.
Q 17Which is the only bird species known to hibernate?
The common poorwill
The common poorwill was confirmed as a hibernator in the 1940s, when one was found torpid in California's Chuckwalla Mountains, yet its Hopi name already meant 'the sleeping one'.
Q 18Which North American frog survives winter frozen solid and ranges farther north than any other amphibian on the continent?
The wood frog
The wood frog floods its cells with glucose as an antifreeze while up to two-thirds of its body water turns to ice; its heart and breathing stop until the spring thaw.
Q 19Female bears do what during their winter dormancy?
Give birth to their cubs
Bears give birth to their cubs in the den in midwinter; each newborn weighs about a pound, and the mother nurses them until spring without eating or drinking herself.
Q 20The snowshoe hare turns white on schedule each autumn, even when no snow has fallen, in response to what?
Shorter days
Shorter days set off the moult, so in a late, snowless autumn a white hare stands out against the bare ground and is easier for predators to catch.
Rescue work made them famous, though the monks first kept them as guard dogs; one dog, Barry, is credited with saving more than 40 lives, and the brandy barrel is a myth traced to an 1820 painting.
Q 24In Greek myth, Demeter leaves the earth barren each winter while her daughter stays where?
In the underworld with Hades
In the underworld with Hades, Persephone tasted pomegranate seeds, and having eaten the food of the dead she was bound to return below for part of every year.
Q 25In Russia, gifts at New Year are brought by Ded Moroz, whose name translates as what?
Grandfather Frost
Grandfather Frost was banned by the early Soviet state, then brought back in the 1930s as the face of a secular New Year, which is why he hands out gifts on New Year's Eve.
Q 26According to tradition, what happens if the groundhog sees its shadow on February 2?
Six more weeks of winter
Six more weeks of winter is the forecast; German settlers brought the custom to Pennsylvania, where they found no badgers to watch and turned to the groundhog.
Q 27Hanukkah recalls a one-day supply of what lasting eight days?
Oil
Oil is the miracle Hanukkah recalls: the Talmud tells of one sealed jar, enough for a day, that kept the menorah alight for eight, which is why fried foods like latkes are eaten.
Q 28Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally end on the fifteenth day with which festival?
The Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival falls on the first full moon of the lunar year, when streets fill with lanterns carrying riddles to solve and families eat sweet rice balls called tangyuan.
Q 29Olympia, the record snowwoman built in Bethel, Maine, in 2008, wore a 100-foot scarf and stood about how tall?
122 feet
122 feet, nearly ten feet taller than the town's 1999 record-holder: Olympia was named after Maine senator Olympia Snowe and had old skis for eyelashes and painted car tyres for lips.
Q 30Which Renaissance artist was commissioned by Piero de' Medici to make a snowman in 1494?
Michelangelo
Michelangelo, then 18, built it in the Medici palace courtyard after heavy snow fell on Florence in January 1494; Vasari, who records the commission, called the statue very beautiful.