My Winter Series Snowflakes ..Natures Fine Art- By Paul Vetrano / Critic There are trillions of snowflakes covering the ground after a beautiful snow fall.. and as science tells us, no two are ever alike. I will now take you up close and personal with one of natures most interesting art forms rarely seen..Snow flakes. How are they formed? I will tell you. Once a water droplet has frozen, it grows in the supersaturated environment, which is one where air is saturated with respect to ice when the temperature is below the freezing point. The droplet then grows by deposition of water molecules in the air (vapor) onto the ice crystal surface where they are collected. There are always six arms to a snowflake. Because water droplets are so much more numerous than the ice crystals due to their sheer abundance, the crystals are able to grow to hundreds of micrometers or millimeters in size at the expense of the water droplets. This process is known as the Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen process. The corresponding depletion of water vapor causes the droplets to evaporate, meaning that the ice crystals grow at the droplets expense. These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation, since they fall through the atmosphere due to their mass, and may collide and stick together in clusters, or aggregates. These aggregates are usually the type of ice particle that falls to the ground. Guinness World Records list the worlds largest (aggregate) snowflakes as those of January 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana; allegedly one measured 15 inches (38 cm) wide. Although this report by a farmer is doubtful, aggregates of three or four inches width have been observed. Single crystals the size of a dime have been observed.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 19:20:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015