Woman Burns Snowball to Show Storm Filomena Is “Fake News”
This viral video in which a Spanish woman claims the heavy snowfalls that have blanketed the country are fake news includes footage where she appears to set fire to snow and claims that it is actually plastic.
The country is currently seeing the heaviest snowfalls in decades after Storm Filomena blankets the country in snow which although was warned of in advance, still took many people by surprise.
Rescue workers reportedly been called up to save thousands that were trapped in cars, and in busy cities snowboarders and skiers took to the streets.
There are even been deaths from people who throws to death or in one case who drowned after a river burst its banks.
But this video which has been widely shared shows a woman claiming that the snow is actually “pure plastic” and she takes a lighter and appears to set fire to it in order to prove the point.
The video starts with her gathering a handful of snow from her balcony in order to make a snowball, and then taking a lighter and holding the flame underneath.
She shows how instead of melting, it appears to turn black and adds “it smells like burned plastic” saying that “they are cheating us with everything”.
But experts asked to offer an opinion about the slope confirmed that what she saw was no surprise.
Biologist Alvaro Bayton posted on Twitter a note saying that because she was using a lighter it was “burning gas or butane that contains an interesting amount of stains that when they burn, create soot”.
The expert said that this meant that the black did not mean that the snowball was burning, but was in fact sort from the burning gas that was forming on the snowball surface.
Regarding the smell, the expert commented that the butane has no smell but it is mixed with other substances that do smell, so that the smell comes from those stains that were forming on the surface of the snowball and then further burning.
With regards to the fact that the snowball was not melting immediately, they said that it was also not surprising, saying: “If the snow is compact, the ice is in contact with more ice, and the flame you are putting in a located point where most of the heat received is going to be dispelled by the cold from the rest of the ice, not melting.”
They said that the ice was effectively protected by the “high specific heat”.
They also added that the reason that none of the snow was turning into water was because the flame at the point of contact was intense causing the ice to turn directly to vapour without the liquid stage in between.