Have you ever noticed how, after a big snowfall, the landscape gets very quiet, and everything looks like it's covered in that insulation you find in the walls of houses? Things that had a distinct shape before — wheelbarrows, mailboxes, parked cars — all become muffled lumps, and the ambient noise we're all so used to is suddenly gone. Some of this has to do with the fact that heavy snow can result in folks staying inside, cutting down on traffic noise and the sounds of tag football games and such. But there's something else: Fresh snow actually is kind of like nature's blow-in insulation.
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