Winter storm brings snow to the East Coast. But what's in a snowflake?
Snowflakes are a staple of magical wintry scenes, but how big can they really get? We find out what makes a snowflake a snowflake.
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Snowflakes are a staple of magical wintry scenes, but how big can they really get? We find out what makes a snowflake a snowflake.
A winter storm brought heavy rain and snow to parts of the East Coast this weekend, which got us thinking about snowflakes. Those intricate, whimsical crystals are a staple of magical wintry scenes, but how big can they really get? Well, according to the Guinness World Record keepers, the "largest snowflake" ever recorded was a whopping 15 inches in diameter. It was spotted near Missoula, Montana in 1887. But Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at Caltech, has long been skeptical of that record. So he set out to find what makes a snowflake a snowflake and whether that 1887 record is scien...
Photographer and scientist Nathan Myhrvold has developed a camera that captures snowflakes at a microscopic level never seen before
The Guinness World Record folks would have us believe in a 19th century snowflake more than a foot wide, but some scientists are skeptical.
The Guinness World Record folks would have us believe in a 19th century snowflake more than a foot wide, but some scientists are skeptical.