Snow cover should be treated as a highly dynamic medium. A variety of physical and chemical processes interact to alter its chemical composition and affect the metamorphism of its individual crystals and layers; this, in turn, has a direct influence on their mutual adhesion, and ultimately on the stability of the entire snow cover.
The literature data here reported provide basic information on the forms of solid precipitation, the types of snow and their generation, as well as the formation, stability, and chemical composition of snow cover in terms of a broad spectrum of inorganic compounds and of the levels of certain organic compounds in snowpit sampled in mountain regions in Poland and elsewhere in the world.