The characters combine literally to mean “on top of snow, add frost.” This simple, natural image creates an immediate and intuitive understanding: the situation was already cold and difficult (snow), and now it has become even more severe (frost).
The idiom 雪上加霜 reflects a common folk wisdom about the nature of hardship—that troubles often don't come alone. It taps into a shared human experience of feeling overwhelmed when fate seems to be piling on. While not tied to a specific philosophy like Daoism or Confucianism, it aligns with a realistic, and at times fatalistic, view of life's challenges. The imagery is key to its cultural resonance. Unlike the English “to add insult to injury,” which can imply a deliberate, personal attack (an “insult”), 雪上加霜 uses an impersonal, natural metaphor. Snow and frost are forces of nature, suggesting that the compounding problems are often due to bad luck, unfortunate circumstances, or a cruel twist of fate rather than a malicious act by another person. It is culturally more similar to the English idiom “when it rains, it pours.” Both use weather to describe an overwhelming series of negative events that are outside of one's control. However, the Chinese version, with its imagery of intensifying cold, perhaps carries an even stronger feeling of increasing misery and despair.
雪上加霜 is a very common idiom used in both formal and informal contexts. You will hear it in everyday conversation, read it in news articles, and see it on social media.