The Hunters in the Snow, and the series to which it belongs, are in the medieval and early Renaissance tradition of the Labours of the Months: depictions of various rural activities and work understood by a spectator in Bruegel's time as representing the different months or times of the year.

[1] The painting shows a wintry scene in which three hunters are returning from an expedition accompanied by their dogs.

The overall visual impression is one of a calm, cold, overcast day; the colors are muted whites and grays, the trees are bare of leaves, and wood smoke hangs in the air.

The painting prominently depicts crows sitting in the denuded trees and a magpie flies in the upper centre of the scene.

[3] The landscape itself is a flat-bottomed valley (a river meanders through it) with jagged peaks visible on the far side.

[6] The surviving Months of the Year cycle are: Hunters in the Snow appears in Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris (1972), during the zero gravity scene.

In the novel Headlong by Michael Frayn, Martin Clay speculates on the sequence and number of Bruegel's paintings, starting with a disquisition on The Hunters in the Snow, after finding what he believes to be a lost picture of the series in a country house.