Question for you snow experts: are rainbow sparkles common?

No, Dewey, I think the rainbow sparkles are really some sort of sinister digital enhancement of the environment, or maybe evidence of global warming, or a result of pollutants in the snow. ;)

Seriously, this was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in a long life of outdoor recreation. Just a freak occurrence -- the snow crystals were just right, the humidity and temp, the angle of the sunlight, or whatever. I will probably never get to see that again.

Snow used to just sparkle white.
But now, it has added rainbow colors to be politically correct and show support! :)

profdant139 wrote:
...And Sue, have you seen this strange phenomenon in the Yukon?

Not often. Mostly just the white sparkles.

During some darkness hours, the air also twinkles, not with snowflakes but with ice crystals in the air. Most noticeable in the car's headlight beam. It becomes real interesting when driving the highway and seeing a pillar of light ahead, rising hundreds of feet upward, but it's only the crystals in the air highlighted by the highbeams of an oncoming car.

Then there's ice fog...here's a sunrise on the Alaska Highway

Trigley, the colors were very bright, both through polarized sunglasses and without them. And Sue, have you seen this strange phenomenon in the Yukon?

Some explanations:
The colored lights are sparkles of sunlight reflected and refracted internally inside snow crystals. Like a prism or a rainbow, the hexagonal crystals break the light into component wavelengths, giving the observer a variety of colors sampled from the rainbow: red, magenta, yellow, cyan, blue, and violet.

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.ca/2014/01/chromatic-snow-sparkles.html

http://whyfiles.org/2010/why-does-snow-sometimes-sparkle/

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~zhuxj/astro/html/snowsparkle.html

"These were not faint -- we were the ones almost fainting. So that is what I am asking -- is it common to see brilliant colors, like chips of jewels scattered on the snow??"

No, I have been observing snow quite a few years more than you & haven't seen it. By the way 11 degrees F is not extreme cold, it's almost balmy.:)
Were the colours bright to the naked eye or through sunglasses. Some of these seem to enhance colours.

It happens quite often here in southern Utah mountains.

Seen it a few times growing/hunting up in WY/UT but never to the extent in your picture.
Looks almost like sprinkles thrown onto snow

Mostly seen yellow snow :B

Thanks for the comments -- and yes, we did have fun. And we have seen white sparkly snow all the time. But never gaudy rainbow snow! The article mentioned by Fizz said:

"You may notice some faint colors in the sparkles. As light travels between air and water, the colors in the light separate, much as they do in a rainbow. The sun’s ray can reflect off different surfaces of the crystal. If the sunlight reflects off the back of the ice crystal, the colors may disperse as the light enters and exits the crystal, making those faint colors."

These were not faint -- we were the ones almost fainting. So that is what I am asking -- is it common to see brilliant colors, like chips of jewels scattered on the snow??

2Lazy mentioned extreme cold and low humidity -- that is exactly what was going on. The night before had gotten down to 11 degrees F. (which is very cold for the Sierra), at the 6500 foot level (where we were camped). The photo was taken at the 8000 foot level, which must have been even colder (maybe down to zero or so?). And the air was very dry, so dry that our fingertips were cracking and bleeding. If severe cold and low humidity are the key factors, I would bet that folks in the Yukon see this a lot. It's very odd, though, that there are so few photos on the Internet of this phenomenon.

Snow is crystalline - so snow crystals act like prisms - hence the different colors of refracted light - based on angle the light hits the crystals. The drier and colder the snow, the more angular each crystal is. Hope this helps - and yes, nice picture - hope you had fun! ST