Snowflake

ETMOLOGY

The word 'snowflake' dates back to 1734.

The English have had at least six words for snowflake: flaughen, flaw, flight, flother, snowblossom and snowflake itself.

Freshly fallen snowflakes By Jason Hollinger 

The first time “snowflake” was used in its current form to describe someone sensitive, fragile, and needing to be coddled was in the 1999 movie Fight Club.

COMPOSITION

The most basic snowflake is a six-sided ice crystal. Tiny ice crystals fall and join with others to form a snowflake.

Broadly, snowflakes are not unique. Most snowflakes have six sides because the molecules that make them up are hexagon-shaped.

The characteristic six branches of a snowflake. By Charles Schmitt

Snowflakes come in one of 35 general shapes according to temperature and humidity. Some of their different shapes are called hexagonal plate, irregular column, stellar plate or spatial dendrites.

According to physicists, it's actually true that no two snowflakes are alike when it comes to complex snowflakes. The temperature greatly affects how the snowflake forms, so while the simplest hexagonal crystals may look alike, more complicated beauties each have their own unique shapes.

Two snowflakes can be atomically identical, but the number of possible snowflake structures exceeds the number of atoms in the universe, so we say the odds are virtually zero.

Snowflakes are not at all white. They are actually translucent, where light is reflected rather than passed through. Because of the snowflake's tiny surface, the light scatters in so many directions that it can't absorb or reflect consistently, and the color comes back as white.

Snow is also made of sleet, which is created when snowflakes pass through the atmosphere and melt a little by the time they hit the ground.

The size of a snowflake depends on how many crystals hook together. Most snowflakes are about 1/2-inch across.

When coal heated homes and factories, coal dust in the air was absorbed by clouds and led to gray snow.

Almost every snow crystal has a tiny mote of dust at its center which can be anything from volcanic ash to a particle from outer space.

Snowflakes often look pink in Prince Edward Island, Canada, thanks to the red clay.

Snowflakes fall at about 1.5 mph (2.4 kph) and take roughly an hour to reach the ground.

HISTORY

The first known photograph of a snowflake was taken on January 15, 1885, by Wilson Bentley, a farmer and self-taught meteorologist from Vermont. He ingeniously combined a bellows camera with a microscope to capture the intricate details of these fleeting ice crystals. Initially, his photographs were met with skepticism, but over time, Bentley amassed over 5,000 images, revealing the astounding variety and unique nature of every snowflake. 

A picture of a Snow Crystal taken by Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man."

The world's largest snowflakes were reported during a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana on January 28, 1887. They were 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick. This event was recorded by a rancher and Fort Keogh's official weather observer, Captain J. P. Finley. The snowflakes were described as being "larger than milk pans" and "as large as a big saucer." 

1 million billion snowflakes fall on the planet every single second.

Sources Heraldnet, ABC7NY