What is meltwater?

Meltwater is what happens when ice turns into liquid water, just like ice cubes melting in your drink on a hot day.

Imagine you have a big block of ice, like the kind that makes your soda extra cold. Now, picture it getting warm, maybe from the sun or because it's sitting near a cozy fire. As it warms up, the ice starts to melt, and liquid water flows out of it. That liquid water is meltwater!

Think about a snowman you build in the winter. If it's sunny the next day, the snow turns into water, and your snowman might start to look like a wet, squishy mess. That’s meltwater doing its job, turning solid ice or snow into liquid water.

Sometimes, this happens on a much bigger scale, like glaciers melting in the summer. The meltwater can flow down hills and into rivers, just like the water from your ice cubes flows into your glass.