The idea that you can smell snow might sound like whimsical baloney dreamed up by romantics or a winter advertising campaign. However, there’s strong evidence that some people can sniff out a thunderstorm or rain, so the idea of snowfall having a scent is not too much of a stretch. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

In the 1960s, Australian scientists came up with the term “ petrichor ” to describe the phenomenon of smelling a warm, earthy fragrance when it's raining.

This distinctive scent is cooked up by a few factors, namely bacteria found in soil that secrete a compound called geosmin when exposed to rainwater. The air also gets ever so slightly warmer and more humid, which carries those odor-bearing molecules to tr

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