Winter symbols vs snowflake symbols
This page covers the whole season: snowmen, warm clothes, hot drinks, winter sports and animals. If you only need snow, the snowflake symbol page compares ❄︎ ❅ ❆ and lists snowy look-alikes for borders.
Most winter symbols here are emoji, so they show in full color. The exceptions are ⛇ and the snowflakes ❅ ❆, which always stay plain text, and ☃︎ and ❄︎, which can show either way.
Three snowmen, three styles
☃︎ (snowman) is the oldest, from Unicode 1.1, and the official code chart draws it with snow falling around it. ⛄︎ came in Unicode 5.2 with the odd official name "snowman without snow", because it has no falling flakes. ⛇ (black snowman) is a solid, text-only version.
On phones, ☃️ and ⛄︎ both appear as emoji, but they look different: ☃️ usually has snow around it. Pick ⛇ when you need a snowman that never turns colorful, for example in a monochrome username.
Winter animals help too: 🐧 and 🐻❄️ (polar bear) suggest ice and snow, while 🦌 and 🦊 bring a snowy forest to mind. The polar bear combines 🐻 and ❄︎ into one emoji, so very old devices show the two separately.
Winter symbols for posts, bios and games
Keep it short: two or three symbols say more than ten. ☕︎ 🧣 ❄︎ reads as cozy, 🎿 🏔︎ ⛷︎ as a ski trip, and 🌲❄︎🌲 as a snowy forest. For the holidays, add trees and gifts from the Christmas symbols, and for snowy peaks, the mountain symbol page.
The kanji 冬 (winter), 雪 (snow) and 氷 (ice) add a minimalist touch to usernames. To type the emoji, press Windows + . on a PC or Control + Command + Space on a Mac. In Microsoft Word, type 2603 and press Alt + X for ☃︎.