"Ice Queen" by Nathan Myhrvold / Modernist Cuisine Gallery, LLC
Drawing by five year old Riley Ratliff
Snow arrived at Merry Mount this week, in fact, as I write this post, I sit with wonder as I watch it snow. Like Riley's characters, I became curious about snow, and turned to:
Snowflakes have a six-sided structure because ice does. When water freezes into individual ice crystals, its molecules stack together to form a hexagonal lattice. As the ice crystal grows, water can freeze onto its six corners multiple times, causing the snowflake to develop a unique, yet still six-sided shape.
In theory, every snowflake nature creates has six, identically shaped arms. This is a result of each of its sides being subjected to the same atmospheric conditions simultaneously. However, if you've ever looked at an actual snowflake you know it often appears broken, fragmented, or as a clump of many snow crystals—all battle scars from colliding with or sticking to neighboring crystals during its trek to the ground.
Since every snowflake takes a slightly different path from the sky to the ground, it encounters slightly different atmospheric conditions along the way and will have a slightly different growth rate and shape as a result. Because of this, it is highly unlikely that any two snowflakes will ever be identical. Even when snowflakes are considered to be "identical twin" snowflakes (which has occurred both in natural snowstorms and in the lab where conditions can be carefully controlled), they may look strikingly similar in size and shape to the naked eye, but under more intense examination, small variations become evident.
Snowflakes
Ideally formed,
Then blown erratically,
Each one falls,
Through light and dark
Like septillions of others
To a final place of rest.
CPW
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