Has a snowflake ever landed on your hand while being outdoors? Nearly everyone experiences such an incident, but normally shrugs off the importance of the occasion. Despite being miniscule, the snowflake is one of the world's most celebrated and fascinating weather phenomenon known to man. This very particle contains a world of knowledge inside of itself. Snowflakes capture the imagination of many by producing a vast change in the landscape during a short period of time.
Snowflakes usually arrive into the Mount Washington Valley with substantial differences. The size, intensity, and shape can vary greatly during one storm. Many people confuse and misunderstand the white flake. Would you believe that the common term of a snowflake is sometimes inappropriately used? In fact, the scientifically correct term is known as the snow crystal. Not to be worried, meteorologists refer to a snowflake when individual snow crystals remain fastened together on their escapade towards earth.
You probably have wondered, how do snowflakes form? The key towards a white Christmas, a winter sport, or nasty driving conditions lies within our atmosphere. Clouds, microscopic water droplets, and very tiny ice crystals are a part of the basic ingredients that form a snowflake. Snowflakes typically form when the near-surface air temperature is not far from the freezing mark. At this reading, snow crystals are much more "sticky" and can collide amongst other crystals. The crystals then grow to become too heavy where they eventually fall towards the earth in the form of a snowflake.
A six sided, hexagonal shape is formed during the beginning stage of a snowflakes development. This formation is closely knit with an infinite number of variations. The temperature at which a crystal forms, as well as the amount of humidity in the air, determines the shape of a snowflake. The most common shape is the unidentifiable form, which is due to collisions and partial melting that occurs during its journey towards earth. Scientific research has charted five basic groups of the snowflake anatomy. The most common, thin plates, occur when the air temperature is between 25 to 32 degrees. Other structures include needles, hollow columns, sector plates, and the Christmas snowflake, the dendrites.
Being composed of ice molecules, the ice crystal is typically less then 0.2 inch in diameter. However, snowflakes are usually much bigger. Smaller versions of a flake average 0.5 inch while a large snowflake can become as wide as 1.5 inches. Snowflakes can grow even larger when the air temperature and wind speed is virtually perfect. Believe it or not, the largest snowflake ever reported in the United States was 15 inches wide. This monster flake fell on Fort Keough, Montana, during January 28, 1887. We will most likely never deal with a snowflake of that magnitude, but one can only marvel at the impact snowflakes have had upon all of us in the Mount Washington Valley.