Now Snow?

Snow,

someone said Snow 3 to 7 inches here and
I was like, "yeah, right".
But, it did snow...
there are little piles of it on top of the cars and not any on the ground.
So yes, we did get snow.
It may have come down as snow, but melted when it hit the ground. How do they measure snow which melts when it hits the ground?

Do they have like a little freezer compartment that keeps the snow frozen till it is done snowing ..then they can measure it and say,

"yep, that was 4 1/2 inches of snow"?

or do they look at the melted snow and compute how much it would have been had it still been snow when it was measured?

And do big fluffy flakes of snow measure the same as little specks of snow?
I guess I just don't get snow.