Interesting facts about snow and snowflakes. Some facts about snow and snowflakes

All about snow: interesting facts about snowflakes

Several centuries ago, the tribes inhabiting the territory of our country used snow not for fun, but to mold a snowman to offer and propitiate the ancient deities. Times and customs change, but the snow is still the same snow-white and a little mysterious. We will tell you the most interesting facts about snow and snowflakes.

ice stars

Snowflakes are actually tiny ice crystals that form from water vapor that freezes in the atmosphere. The size of the snowflakes depends on how many ice crystals are stuck together. Each "asterisk" consists of about 200 ice crystals. Snowflakes have six sides.

There are no scientific evidence that no two are alike. On average, snowflakes fall from the sky at a speed of 5 - 6 km per hour. About 80% of world reserves fresh water is made up of ice and snow. The snow temperature must be at least 32 degrees.

And he's not white...

He's not really white. It appears white due to the ability of light to reflect off the ice crystals. They don't always look white. After all, coal is widely used in the world, and coal dust is in the air. It is absorbed by the clouds, and then, due to dirty air, the color of the snow is gray.

The red comes from the algae trapped in the crystals. The algae are reddish in color and are mostly found in the Canadian Rockies.

Snow on the North and south poles reflects heat into space like a mirror reflecting the sun.

Heavy snowfalls with strong winds and limited visibility are called blizzards. Billions of snowflakes fall in every blizzard. When meteorologists predict a blizzard, people buy more cakes, candies and cookies than any other food.

The most snowfall in a 24-hour period was 193 cm at Silver Lake in Colorado in 1921.

The most popular children's activity is building a snowman. The largest snow sculpture was built in Heilongjiang province in China in 2008. Its dimensions were 200 meters long and 35 meters high. It was built by 600 sculptors from 40 countries.

Road in the snow

The Vapusk trail is considered the longest winter road in the world record book (it works only in winter months). It is 751 km long and connects Gillam Monitoba with Piwanook Ontario in Canada. The road closes at the end of March when the weather gets warmer.

Only in winter are such activities available as snowball fights or building a snow castle. This is the most fun time of the year, with its holidays and fun.

Dear readers, hello! We have a new, well, very entertaining project. All of us have caught small white parachutes falling from the sky on mittens or in warm palms, and sometimes right in our mouths! But where do these patterned ice crystals come from, and do you know what snowflakes are?

Lesson plan:

How do snowflakes appear?

Snowflakes exist in nature thanks to water vapor. From the accumulation of water rain falls in the summer, but in winter the cold air freezes small droplets of water and as a result it snows.

How does this fragile miracle come about? The beginning of each patterned crystal is given by its middle - the core, which can be any speck of dust from the cloud. This speck of dust, as it moves through the clouds, is overgrown with transparent ice crystals, which give it certain form. Gradually, so many crystals are glued that the weight of the dust particle makes it fall to the ground.

If you carefully consider the patterns of snowflakes falling from the sky, you can easily notice that none of them is similar to the other.

Interesting Facts! An ordinary snowflake weighs about 1 milligram, rarely 2 or 3. But the most Bolshukhansky ones fell in 1944 in Moscow. You can't even call them snowflakes. The size of a palm, they looked more like ostrich feathers.

Why are snowflakes different?

The question of why ice crystals fall from the sky in different shapes has always been of interest to scientists. The first to think about their structure was the German astronomer Kepler. He wondered why pentagonal or heptagonal snowflakes did not fall from the sky.

The French mathematician Descartes first made detailed description, what ice crystals might look like, and divided them into groups. Rare forms are mentioned in his works.

When the microscope was invented, the British physicist Hooke published graphic images snowflakes, showing all the unique intricate patterns of the wonder of nature.

Russian photographer Sigson even managed to take a photo of about two hundred different snowflakes. But the real snow pioneer of photography was the American Bentley, who took 5,000 pictures in his life, of which 2,500 were included in the book Snow Crystals.

Japanese physicist Nakaya learned how to grow snowflakes in the lab. He poetically called them letters from heaven.

As a result of the work of scientists from different countries it became clear that

• in nature there is no other form of snowflakes, except for hexagonal,
• the species depends on the environment in which the ice crystal is born,
• among the factors affecting the shape are air temperature and humidity,
• the simplest patterns appear when not very humid air,
• the higher the percentage of humidity and air temperature, the more complex and beautiful the snowflake turns out.
• the angle between the beams can be either 60 or 120 degrees.

Interesting Facts! A snowflake falling on the water creates a high pitched sound. A person, of course, does not hear him, but, as scientists say, such noise is extremely unpleasant for fish.

Now you know where snowflakes come from and why they are different. All ice crystals were conventionally divided into seven simple groups and given their conventional names.

Plate

The simplest of all, thin and flat. She has many edges that divide the crystal into parts.

Column

These snowflakes, resembling a hollow hexagonal pencil, are the most common of all shapes. It can be blunt or pointed at the ends.

Column with a tip

This type is obtained if an ordinary column falls into certain conditions under which the crystal changes the direction of its growth and gradually turns into a plate at the ends. For example, this happens when moving to another temperature zone under the influence of wind.

Needle

This is a kind of columnar snowflake that has grown thin and long. It happens that they have a cavity inside, but sometimes they open at the ends in the form of branches.

Stars

This specimen has a beautiful branching silhouette that we love to admire. It has six absolutely symmetrical main rays and many different branches. They are about 5 mm in size and are usually flat.

Spatial dendrites

Amazing patterned crystals are voluminous due to the combination of various other types.

Wrong snowflakes

Yes, there is also such a group, which includes damaged representatives who, on the way to us, damaged their twigs or completely broke into pieces. Such crippled snowflakes are usually obtained by strong wind, there are many of them in wet snow.

Remember we talked about different forms obtained with different conditions? So here it is

• stars are usually obtained at temperatures down to -5 degrees,
• but the needles - from -5 to -10,
• for complex dendrites, the temperature should be at least -10 and not lower than -20 degrees,
• but plates and columns of different sizes are formed even with air at -35.

Interesting Facts! It is estimated that half of the inhabitants of the Earth have never seen snowflakes. But they have a chance to come north or visit the world's only snowflake museum in Japan on the island of Hokkaido.

like this interesting project we got it today. Look to us more often, there is still a lot of interesting things in the world to tell about!

By the way, we have already talked about many interesting things. For example, about why leaves turn yellow in autumn. we met winter folk omens, and learned more about ball lightning.
Evgenia Klimkovich.

The snowflake is one of the most amazing natural creations. If a person wanted to create something like this, he would have to try very hard. During a snowfall, billions of small crystals cover the ground, and it is worth noting that none of them are the same, they are all different.

What determines the shape of a snowflake?

The shape of a snowflake depends on the temperature that contributed to its formation. Everyone knows that clouds that are high will be colder than those below. So, how does temperature affect the shape of a snowflake:

• -3...0 °С - flat hexagon;
• -5...-3 °С - acicular crystal;
• -8...-5 °С - column-prism;
• -12...-6 °С - flat hexagon again;
• -16...-12 °С - star-shaped snowflakes.

As the snowflake grows, it becomes heavy, which causes it to fall to the ground. In the process of falling, its shape changes. If, while descending, the snowflake rotates, then it will reach the earth perfectly symmetrical. And if the crystal falls sideways, then in the end it will lose its shape. On the fly, snowflakes can stick together and form whole flakes of snow. Each of them can contain up to two hundred crystals. It can be concluded that the shape of a snowflake depends entirely on the trajectory of its flight and temperature regime at different heights.

Snowflake classification

The International Commission for the Study of Snow and Ice in 1951 adopted a classification solid precipitation. All crystals, according to it, can be divided into groups:

• records;
• stellate dendrites;
• needles;
• columns;
• columns with a tip;
• spatial dendrites;
• education irregular shape.

• hail;
• ice grain;
• snowy small grains.

Description of the main types of snowflakes

• Star-shaped dendrites are crystals that are characterized by a branching, tree-like structure. They have 6 main branches, arranged symmetrically, and many branches, placed randomly. The size of such formations, as a rule, is 5 mm in diameter, and their thickness is 0.1 mm. This suggests that such snowflakes are thin and flat.
• Columns are the most common form of snowflakes and are also called columns. Such hollow tubes may be shaped like a hexagon, like a pencil with a pointed end.
• The plates are made up of many ice ribs that divide the snowflake into sectors. Such formations are also very thin and flat.
• The needles are columnar crystals that grow thin and long. Sometimes inside they are hollow, and sometimes they can split into several branches.

• The columns with a tip are distinguished by a columnar shape, but under the influence of various factors they can turn into thin plates, especially if they are carried into a zone where a different temperature prevails.
• Spatial dendrites are compressed or fused columnar crystals that have formed a three-dimensional structure. In this case, each branch is located in a separate plane.
• Irregularly shaped snowflakes are crystals that have experienced many "adventures" during the flight. For example, they could be brought into a turbulent zone, where they could lose some of the branches or break completely. Such snowflakes can be seen in strong winds in wet snow.

Snow is incredibly large figures that amaze our imagination. In order for one snowflake to crystallize from water vapor, one million water drops are needed. And in just a winter, on average, one septillion snowflakes fall on the earth. A septillion is one trillion trillion and is a number with 24 zeros after one. Now try to find out the number of water droplets by multiplying a septillion by a million ...

Snow flies and swirls because snowflakes are almost weightless. And no wonder: after all, they are only 5% water. Therefore, in calm calm weather, the speed of falling snowflakes weighing 1 milligram does not exceed 0.9 km / h. But with the mind-boggling numbers of snowflakes, this is an apparent lightness. Suffice it to say that just 1 cm of snow cover per hectare of area can produce from 25 to 35 cubic meters of water.

The whiteness of snow, sung for centuries, is a consequence of the 95% content of air in snowflakes. Light scatters from countless surfaces of ice crystals, which are snowflakes, in all directions, regardless of the wavelength of the spectrum. In general, snow plays a huge role in the thermoregulation of the Earth's climate: it reflects up to 90% of the sun's rays. It was with the onset of snowfalls and the appearance of snow-covered surfaces that the volcano warmed up earth atmosphere ancient Earth began to cool to state of the art. Want to know what a planet without snow looks like? Take a look at Venus...

But perfect White snow can be painted in any color, depending on which component is present in water droplets: dust, sand, algae, etc. The chronicle of mankind, from chronicles to YouTube videos, tells about the snow of a wide variety of colors. You can imagine the horror of the Swiss when black snow fell on their heads exactly on Christmas Day 1969! Somewhere in the highlands lies pink snow, colored with algae, which feed on ice worms. And this snow smells like… watermelons!

If you not only saw snow, but also wandered through it, you can be considered lucky: most of population the globe never seen snow live. By the way, have you noticed that the stronger the frost, the louder the snow creaks under your feet? This creak is the crunch of breaking ice needles on snowflakes. At temperatures below -6 degrees, a high-frequency component is present in the spectrum of this crunch. What is interesting: snowflakes also emit high-frequency sounds when they simply fall into the water. This "singing" is inaudible to the human ear, but, according to scientists, fish cannot stand it.

Every person who has devoted his life to the study of snowflakes can consider that he did not live it in vain. The first was, by the way, not a scientist, but a professional photographer, American Wilson Bentley. Snowflakes interested him as a teenager. But Bentley did not have time to sketch them: the snowflakes quickly melted even at sub-zero temperatures. Fortunately, cameras had already appeared by this time. After much experimentation, the first photograph of a snowflake on black velvet was taken on January 15, 1885. During his life, Bentley took more than 5 thousand such photographs, together with the scientist Perkins, for the first time declared that there are no two identical snowflakes, and deservedly received the nickname Snowflake (Snowflake).

Bentley and Perkins were right. The process of crystallization of water droplets is unpredictable, and therefore two snowflakes with the same pattern do not exist. Some physicists, deriving complex formulas, prove that the number of variants of snowflake shapes exceeds the number of atoms in the part of the Universe observed by man! Their sizes also vary. The average snowflake is no more than 5 mm in diameter. But on January 28, 1987, in Fort Coy (Montana, USA), during a snowfall, one of the heirs of the Bentley case discovered, without exaggeration, a giant 38 mm snowflake!

You ask: “Why study snowflakes? Does it make any sense?" After all, four centuries have passed since Johannes Kepler in his treatise “On Hexagonal Snowflakes” believed the wonders of nature to be rigid geometry. There is.

The theory of the crystal, which was substantially supplemented by the study of snowflakes, has many gaps. For example, scientists know about the dependence of snowflake growth on temperature, air humidity and other external conditions. But they couldn't explain it. For now.

But snowflakes as a type of solid precipitation were included in the classification International Commission over snow and ice. It turns out that snow crystals can be in the form of plates, star-shaped, simple columns, columns with a tip, needles, spatial dendrites, and even irregular shapes. The latter happens when a drop of water freezes to a falling "young" snowflake.

But in Japan, snowflakes are not only correct, but also special. That is, Japanese. Jokes aside: Japanese islands still suspect that the local snow is not the same as in other countries. What jokes are there! In the early 1980s, it came to the government restricting ski imports under the pretext of protecting the domestic manufacturer. Somewhere in Japan New Year you can still hear the song about the Japanese champion who will never be able to ride on Japanese snow on imported skis ...

How often, in the midst of the usual hustle and bustle, we do not notice the beautiful, we are not surprised by the small miracles that are very close by. You just have to lend a hand. And last hot summer was a dream for us.

Digging out their car once again, motorists complain about snowy weather, extreme sportsmen remember riding skiing with a breeze, and children joyfully frolic in snowdrifts, sculpt snowmen and ride downhill. Kids see a real miracle in the snow and rejoice in it from the bottom of their hearts. But snow really is a unique creation of nature!

Scientists have calculated that each cubic meter of snow contains about 350 million snowflakes and, most surprisingly, none of them repeat the other. Snowflakes are not only unique, but also have an ideal harmonious design, representing a truly fantastic example of the self-organization of matter from simple to complex.

All of them have a hexagonal shape, there are no five-pointed snowflakes (this is an invention of Soviet artists). Another famous mathematician of the XVII century. Johannes Kepler was struck by a small dot found in the middle of a snowflake, as if it were a trace from the leg of a compass. The scientist devoted a whole scientific treatise "New Year's gift" to snowflakes.

For centuries, snowflakes have been studied, viewed under a microscope, and photographed. Japanese scientist Nakaya Ukichiro was the first to classify snowflakes.

All snow crystals are divided into several groups:

• records
• columns with tips
• stellate dendrites
• columns
• spatial dendrites
• irregular shapes

What determines the shape of snowflakes? Due to the different ratio of heat and moisture, the same crystals acquire different shape, but retain symmetry. There are "crippled" snowflakes - those that fell into the turbulence zone during the flight and broke or lost some of their branches.
A snowflake weighs about a milligram, very large snowflakes 2-3 mg. The largest snowflakes in the world were recorded in 1944 on April 30 in Moscow. They covered the palm of their hand and looked like ostrich feathers.

However, billions of snowflakes, each of which is practically weightless, can even affect the speed of the Earth's rotation. Typically, during the northern hemisphere winter, the entire mass of the globe increases due to snow cover by about as much as 13,500 billion tons. White, shiny snow is able to deprive the Earth of solar heat, since it reflects about 90% solar energy back into space.

Snowflakes are 95% air, so they have a low density and a slow fall speed (about 0.9 km per hour). Skipping the rain stage, snowflakes are formed from steam (to find out this fact alone, American scientists spent 26,400,000 dollars).

The first person who managed to photograph snowflakes, Wilson Bentley, a farmer from the USA, published in 1931 an album with these unique photographs (2500 pictures in total). How are snowflakes photographed? To capture this miracle of nature, it is necessary to place snowflakes not on a microscope glass (then they lose their beautiful outlines even in the cold), but on a thin silk mesh like a cobweb, just then they can be photographed in all its glory, and the mesh is subsequently retouched.

In Japan, on the island of Hokkaido, there is a snowflake museum - the only one in the world named after Nakaya Ukichiro.

Knowing about snowflakes amazing facts not only children, but also adults will be able to look at this wonderful phenomenon with completely different eyes. Moreover, Russians should appreciate this opportunity, because according to statistics, more than half of the world's population has never seen snow in their lives, and we can rejoice at it and consider it every day. 🙂

If you don't have snow at the moment or don't feel like leaving the house, you can make beautiful snowflakes from paper. And the video tutorial by Svetlana Bobrovskaya will tell you how to do it right.