Proto-Indo-European Roots

Root/Stem:	*sneigwh-
Meaning:	snow
Cognates:	Greek niks, gen. niphos (snow), neiphei (it snows)
	Latin nix, nivis (snow), ninguit (it snows) >  French neige, Sardinian nie, Ladin naiv, Italian neve, Catalan neu, Spanish nieve, Occitan neu, Portuguese neve
	Common Celtic *snig- >  Old Irish snigid (it snows), snechta (snow), Irish sneachta, Scottish sneachtadh
	Gothic snaiws (snow), Old High German snîvit (it snows), Old English snâw (snow), Old Norse snâer,   Swedish sno, Danish & Norwegian sne, Icelandic snjór, German Schnee, Frisian snie, Dutch sneeuw, Africaans sneeu
	Avestan snaez'aiti (it snows)
	Sanskrit snihyati (he gets wet)
	Common Baltic *snég-, >  Lithuanian sniega (it snows), snigti (to snow), Latvian snigt, Old Prussian snaygis (snow), Sudovian snaigas
	Common Slavic *sne.gü (snow), >  Old Church Slavonic sne.gü, Ukrainian snig, Bulgarian sniag, Macedonian sneg, Serbo-Croatian snijeg, Slovene sneg, Czech snih, Slovak sneh, Polish s'nieg, Upper Sorbian sneh, Lower Sorbian sneg, Polabian snêg, Russian sneg, snezhit' (to snow).
Notes:	In any case the presence of this stem in so many Indo-European languages proves that Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in the region where it snowed. And the meaning is primary, though in some languages could be lost (like Sanskrit), or mixed with the meaning "winter".  The initial s- was, probably, subject to some mutations in Proto-Indo-European, so Greek and Italic languages do not have it.