In the five years that we lived in the Oklahoma Panhandle, it only snowed two or three times, and the sheer novelty of seeing snow made me not look at it too carefully. Yesterday I went out to my car in the faculty lot at Lakeland, though, and found it covered with about another inch of snow (yes… one of the joys of living in Northeast Ohio is cleaning snow off of your car multiple times in a day). As I was brushing, I noticed that the snow was extra fluffy–if I were a skier, I would probably have loved it. Looking closer, the flakes were very large, and mostly planar, like little pieces of plastic that almost looked fake… up close they were shiny and had the six-pointed structure we associate with snow flakes, writ large so that I could examine it easily. I realized that in the six or eight times that it’s snowed this season, the flakes have been different every time. I knew this–the eskimos famously are supposed to have 30 different words for snow in their language–but the reminder was fantastic. Winter can get to be grind, but we have to remember to stop and notice the beauty of Creation whenever we can.
Tags: snow
Those large snowflakes are lake effect snow. And if they were shiny I’m betting it was very cold out. The temperature greatly affects the crystal structures of the flakes. (I just finished my level 1 Avalanche class, and snow metamorphosis was part of the class)