Hieroglyphs from the Sky

What are snowflakes? Is it true that no two are alike?

On the 28th of January, 1887, the town of Fort Keogh in Montana was experiencing unusually heavy snowfall. A ranch owner named Matt Coleman became a witness to this unique natural phenomenon. Amidst the falling snowflakes, one attracted his attention above all the rest: it was nearly 16 inches wide and 8 inches thick! Even today, it still holds the status of the largest snowflake ever recorded.

Such large flakes appear during warm winter weather. It is much colder up in the atmosphere, where snowflakes form. As they fall, they melt a little and stick together. If you catch one on your mitten, you can see that it actually consists of several different flakes. And each one is unique.

But how do we know that? Has someone examined every snowflake in the world and proved once and for all that no two of them are alike? Of course not! But that doesn’t stop scientists from confidently stating there could never be two identical snowflakes. To understand why, we have to figure out what snowflakes are and how they appear.

Story told by Garrett Tucker.

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