January 14, 2013 By Marci Goodwin 14 Comments

Snowflake Science

It’s that time of year when kids are building snowmen, having snowball fights and making snow angels. They might even be cutting out paper snowflakes when they come inside to warm up. Why not take advantage of their current fascination with snow and study snowflake science?

How Are Snowflakes Formed?

Snowflakes are formed when water vapor freezes to a particle of dust or other matter in the clouds. As this tiny particle of ice moves through the clouds, more water vapor freezes to it. Eventually, this process creates a snowflake that is heavy enough to fall from the clouds to the earth. (Notice that snow is formed from water vapor, not raindrops.)

Why Are Snowflakes Always Six Sided?

The beautiful six-sided structure of snowflakes comes from the hexagonal lattice structure of ice. When water freezes, the molecules connect together and always form hexagons. As more molecules are added, they form branches on each of the six sides.

Why Aren’t All Snowflakes Alike?

It is probably true that no two snowflakes are exactly alike given that it can take up to 100,000 water vapor droplets to make each snowflake. It is highly improbable that all 100,000 droplets of one snowflake could arrange themselves exactly the same way as another.

The arrangement of these vapor droplets in each snowflake is dependent upon the temperature and moisture levels of the clouds. This diagram from www.snowcrystals.com shows how humidity and temperature relate to snowflake shapes.

Snowflakes can be found in hexagon shaped plates, lacey dendrites, needles and columns. Which one of these have you seen in the winter time?

How Can You Capture Your Own Snowflakes

If you want to capture snowflakes of your own to observe, you need the following:

a cold, winter day
a black piece of foam board or paper
a magnifying glass

Place the black paper or foam board outside, but out of the snow, for 15 – 20 minutes, or until snowflakes can land on it and not melt immediately. When the paper is cold enough place the paper on a level surface or hold it carefully where snowflakes can fall on it. Observe the collected snowflakes with the magnifying glass quickly before they disappear.