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Snow … as much a part of our Minnesota life as is breathing. But, other than shoveling it–and swearing at it–do we ever take a moment to think about it?  Really dwell on it? Other than being cold and white, what is it anyway?   And how does it happen?

For example, did you know that snowflakes begin to take shape between 30,000 and 40,000 feet above the earth? It happens somewhere between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Up there the temperatures dip down to 75 degrees below zero.  Brrrr..

Floating above those clouds are thousands of species of bacteria, fungi and protozoa, along with the pollen of some 10,000 varieties of flowering plants. And on top of that is the untold quantity of atmospheric dust.

Each tiny nuclei becomes a center around which water molecules freeze. To make a single raindrop requires ten million of these particles. For them to then freeze into a single snowflake requires about a million frozen crystals. (Mind you, no one’s actually counting, but that’s a close estimate.) A ten inch accumulation of snow on one acre of land may total up to a million billion snowflakes.

As a snowflake begins its descent down to earth, it starts out in the initial shape of a hexagon. Then, like the turning of a kaleidoscope,  it gradually changes. (I personally believe each flake also comes with an embedded postal delivery code. My driveway!) As the winds sweep the snowflakes thousands of feet up and down, the shape of the crystals gradually change as the six points of the hexagon grow or lose their spindly arms.

Snow experts have come up with ten words to describe snowflakes: plates, stellars, needles, columns, capped columns, spatial dendrites, graupel, sleet, hail and a catch-all category for the remaining irregulars. There is a significant aesthetic difference in each crystal’s appearance. Capped columns, for example, look like empty bobbins for thread. They refract countless millions of prisms, making the sun and moon appear to be surrounded by halos.

In contrast, the homeliest snowflake is the graupel. (I’m guessing this is the one we see on Main Street after a snowy, extra-heavy traffic day.) Graupels are formed when water droplets float through regions of fog or clouds and become bonded into hardened pellets. By the time graupels reach the ground, they look like frozen blobs of brain tissues. (Yup, that would be Main Street in February alright.)

In 1910, a Russian meteorologist claimed to have observed 246 different kinds of snow. And if this loony (no kidding) fellow were not beset enough, between 1884 and 1931, an even more obsessed guy in Vermont published a photographic portfolio with 2,453 micro-photographs of individual flakes. He claimed that he had barely begun his list. (We should seriously pray for him.)

And then there’s this: one single cubic foot of snow may contain up to ten million flakes while the total snow accumulation on earth (which includes your driveway)–from the beginning of time to now—would be something like 50 miles deep. That’s roughly from Austin to Faribault if you need a visual.

By now your head must be spinning with way too many numbers. Perhaps the best thing for us to do at this point is to simply hibernate for the rest of the winter or—even better—put our efforts toward the beautification of Austin’s Main Street by building attractive graupel snowmen. If you do, however, it will not be necessary for you to count the individual flakes.  Honest, you don’t have to.