Winter magic

Posted at 4:09 PM on December 17, 2008 by Paul Huttner (1 Comments)

Simple stars and stellar dendrites sparkle in the sunlight on a fence rail at the Huttner Weather Lab

They say no two snowflakes are alike.

That's probably true, but there are many similar categories of nature's beautiful winter creations. All snow crystals do have 6 sides. But there are many different crystal types that form depending on moisture and temperatures in the specific environment where they grow.

I'm not an expert in identifying snow crystal types, but I took a magnifying glass and a field identification guide out today and took a closer look at the sparkles in the snow outside the Weather Lab. Here are three varieties I think I found.

-Simple stars
-Radiating hexagonal plates
-Stellar dendrites.

One of my favorite books is "The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty" by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht of Cal Tech. Dr Libbrecht has done excellent work collecting, creating, and categorizing snow crystals.

Snowcrystals.com

Jet Streaming interview with Dr. Libbrecht

Enjoy the magic of winter as it sparkles outside on the landscape. Looking at the weather maps these days, there is plenty more "magic" on the way to enjoy!

PH

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Comments (1)

I know there are others out there who disagree with me, but I think for the variety of weather-based stuff, winter has the other seasons beat hands down. Sure, summer has rainbows and lightning storms, and they're pretty neat. But in winter, you have sun dogs, sun haloes, sun pillars, moon haloes, and coronas. A 50-mile distance between two places could mean a half-foot of snowfall, no snowfall, 1/2 inch of freezing rain, or 50-degree temperatures.

Subtlety. I guess that's the word I'm looking for.

Posted by Chris B. Critter | December 18, 2008 10:03 PM

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