How big can a snowflake get? | Hacker News Reader

How big can a snowflake get?

npr.org

76 pointsHooke22 comments

I have seen perfect 6-pointed snowflakes that were 1-2cm diameter many years ago. I was crossing a remote mountain pass in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho in September when the temperature dropped precipitously and it started snowing heavily, which was very unexpected at the time. In this case though, the snowflakes were stunning, almost the platonic ideal of a 6-pointed snowflake at huge sizes. We actually pulled over to watch it, it was pure magic.

I have never seen anything like it before or since. I didn’t think snowflakes like that were a thing that could actually exist, despite being depicted that way. I’ve seen a lot of snow in many locales but to this day it was a singular experience.

Since I have never seen that type of snow anywhere else, I have to wonder how much the extremely anomalous conditions that caused the snow storm contributed to the exceptionally rare form of the snowflakes.

> they say that the "largest snowflake" is one that fell near Missoula, Montana in 1887. It reportedly was 15 inches in diameter and 8 inches thick.

Near there is where I experienced my biggest snowflakes: 4-6 inches long, 2 inches in diameter. We call them goose feathers. In this particular storm, these fell for a good half hour before returning to normal coin sized flakes.

As for snow crystals, many don't realize you can see those with the naked eye as seen in the freshly fallen snowflake photo on this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake

> normal coin sized flakes.

That's crazy. Here our flakes feel smaller than a centimetre

What shape? Can you draw an ASCII diagram of them?

Location?

About what year?

Pretty much like this: https://s.w-x.co/big-flakes.gif?crop=16:9&width=480

An hour north of Missoula Montana. Saw them maybe three years ago.

Snowflakes - aggregations of snow crystals - can grow to astonishing proportions.

Many have encountered big fluffy snow-wads that piff! into your face, when conditions are right - little wind, near freezing, high precipitation.

I've seen 'snow cones', which are little snow-wads that have been formed by upper atmosphere conditions into cone-shaped aggregates, point down, spiraling slowly in a marvelous flotilla of adorable tiny snow ballerinas!

Maybe 2 inches tall!

Drive through British Columbia in the winter, west to east from Vancouver. Vancouver is always well above freezing, the BC interior well below. You will witness all manner of snow conditions very quickly as you gain altitude. Somewhere between coastal rain and the dry snow of the interior you will hit peak-snowflake. Asymmetric 2-inch wide snow things on your windscreen is unusual but not abnormal. When standing in it you can almost see them knock into each other to become bigger. As you drive higher it will quickly tapper off into smaller flakes, as the winds get faster and the air drier. But those fat flakes are always a bad sign, an indication that the road will soon close for avalanche mitigation work: the army blasting the mountains with artillery.

Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiJXzlIaaCA

>Snowflakes - aggregations of snow crystals - can grow to astonishing proportions.

the snowflakes of "no two snowflakes are alike" are hexagonally symmetric, i.e. they are single crystals.

The OP distinguished between snow crystals and snowflakes in this way.

On the opposite of the size spectrup, try to find "ice crystals". It is like glitter or falling diamonds and occurs without clouds. On a quiet night the effect is as close to disney magic as weather gets imho.

https://youtu.be/4yBNmoa4htE

https://youtu.be/HXJ9NG5Bszo

Also happens in cold clear weather when snow blows off the mountain tops, in my experience

Fun fact: there’s no such thing as a 12-arm snowflake. Any 6*2^n arm snowflake is just a 6-arm w/ split branches

Can anybody explain why the optimal conditions for the formation of large snowflakes (5 degrees farenheit and no wind) are what they are?

Nucleation is slower at lower temperatures, so fewer flakes form

Thank you

Would make for a nice mini satellite experiment.

Depends on what kind of snowflake we are talking about. Millenial or Gen-Z?

Have you tried saying the words “trans” in front of a boomer?

Most 'boomers' are fine with trans in everyday life, as long as they make some effort to pass, and don't take the piss, e.g. the recent problem of males in women's sports.

My immediate thought was why does NPR care how big NYSE:SNOW gets?

Mine was: "The size of the largest liberal. Dur Hur Hur! Bluuuugh."

same. I was pleasantly surprised when it was not.

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