This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community.
Spring is the time to watch for freezing of buried water and sewer pipes.
As soil freezes it extracts energy from the warmer soil below, causing its temperature to lower. By this process the freezing level moves slowly downward. But under a deep layer of loose snow, soil will freeze at a much slower rate.