- Each snowflake is made up of a single ice crystal or hundreds of tiny ice crystals grouped together.
- These beautiful ice crystals are made when tiny cloud droplets freeze in the atmosphere. As the ice crystals move through the cloud, they collect more crystals and grow larger. Finally, they become very heavy and that’s what makes them fall to the ground.
- Most snowflakes have six sides. Some snowflakes are perfectly symmetrical, which means that if you fold them down the centre, they look exactly the same on both sides.
- Snowflakes come in lots of different shapes. Some are flat, some are knobbly columns, some are pointy needles, some look lacy and some look like stars. Scientists can’t agree on how many types of snowflake shapes there are - some say six, some say 80!
- It’s thought that no two snowflakes are exactly the same, but it’s very hard to prove this.
- The size of a snowflake depends on the number of crystals. They can be quite large – snowflake spotters have discovered flakes as wide as 10cm!
- Snowflakes aren’t really white, they’re clear. They only look white because of the sunlight reflecting off the ice crystals.
- A lot of the world’s fresh water supply - the water we use to wash in and drink - comes from snow and ice.
Aren’t snowflakes an amazing special wonder? Next time it snows, be a proper snowflake spotter! Go outside with a magnifying glass and a sheet of black card. Catch some snowflakes on the card and have a good close-up look at them! See if you can spot the different shapes and patterns they make!
With love and sparkly magic dust from the Magic Belles in Bellevue xxx
