Just a few flakes of snow!

All through the week the weather forecasters have been promising that it would snow on Friday, including the area where I live, even though we don't actually get that much here usually. Friday came and went and . . . nothing! Admittedly, there was more than enough of the stuff most other places a few miles from us, but here --- nowt, zilch, nuffin' at all!!! However, when I awoke this morning there was a smattering on the rooftops etcetera of the white stuff, albeit that it seemed more hail-like than soft and powdery.

I do actually like the snow, at least to look at. Well, if I admit to it, the little boy that still exists in these old bones likes wrapping up well and walking through it too. There's something rather special about walking through snow when it's still undisturbed and new, leaving your footprints, perhaps finding the marks where some small creature has left their imprint for you to marvel at. And the way that snow looks on trees and hedgerows when it has been blown there in a blizzard-like fall --- WOW! Now that's something to behold and to lock the image away in your memory to treasure, isn't it.

One of the things that I marvel at with snow is the shape of the snowflakes when you see them magnified. Frozen crystals of all shapes and sizes float down and accumulate. The white fields resemble diamonds glittering in the sun. Some snowflakes resemble Dorian columns; some look like oak leaves; some are shaped like dinner plates; and thousands are almost perfectly symmetrical six-armed intricate snowflakes that look like frozen lace.Wilson ‘Snowflake’ Bentley took over 6,000 photographs of individual flakes between the early 1880’s and his death in 1931. No two were alike. Isn't it yet another example of the wonder of God's creation! The same is the case with people. Although the basic desigb is the same, when it comes down to it no two are really totally alike. Even 'identical' twins will have tiny differences which, although strangers might not notice, certainly they will be able to see in each other.

Here's a few facts concerning snowflakes:

• More snow falls each year in southern Canada and the northern US than at the North Pole.
• Large snowflakes can measure up to 2" across and contain hundreds of individual crystals.
• The largest snowflake ever found was 8" by 12". It was reported to have fallen in Bratsk, Siberia in 1971.
• In Germany, frogs were once kept as pets because they croaked more loudly when air pressure fell and when bad weather was coming. They acted like primitive living barometers.
• An ice core 1,200 feet long can show what the climate was 1,400 years ago.
• The lowest ever temp recorded was at Vostok, a research base in Antarctica on July 21, 1983: -128.6°F.
• The heaviest snowfall in 24 hours is 76" at Silver Lake, CO 4/15/21
• The heaviest snow storm occurred on Feb. 13-19, 1959 at Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl, CA: 189" of snow fell.

Scientists believe dust and bacteria blown off plants and thrown into the air by ocean waves produce rain and snow. In a lab, Russell Schnell (U of CO) produced snowflakes by injecting bacteria into a cloud chamber. The experimental clouds immediately turned into snow. The bacteria, Pseudomonas syringae and Erwinia herbicola, contain a molecule that attracts water. After one ice crystal forms, it splinters. Each fragment serves as a seed for another ice crystal. The snowflake’s six-sided shape comes from the hexagonal lattice structure of an ice molecule.

Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley (1865 - 1931), known as The Snowflake Man, said of snowflakes in 1925, "Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."