The Mind-Blowing About Snow You Never Knew Until Now!!

No two snowflakes are alike? Well, maybe not.

Snow isn’t actually white.

That’s right. Snow is actually clear. Snowflakes are made out of ice crystals, so when light passes through, it bends and bounces off each individual crystal. The entire spectrum of light is reflected back to our eyes, and we see white snow. So there’s actually no such thing as a White Christmas, but that sounds a lot more catchier than Translucent Christmas.

Snowflakes always have six sides.

It’s in science. The water molecules that snowflakes are made of can only fit together in a way that results in a six-sided ice crystal. So those snowflake decorations and ornaments you see with five or eight sides? Don’t buy them. You’d be breaking a law of nature.

Some snowflakes are the same.

Oh, the things you can discover with microscopes. In 1988, Nancy Knight, a scientist at the National Center for Atmosphere Research in Colorado, found two identical snowflakes that came from a storm out of Wisconsin. Next time you want to tell someone how unique he or she is, don’t use a snowflake as an example. Hahaha!!

Snowstorms are not blizzards.

Besides the fact that “blizzard” just sounds a lot more threatening than “snowstorm,” the real difference between the two is in wind speeds and visibility. According to the National Weather Service, a blizzard must have large amounts of snow, winds blowing over 35 miles per hour, and visibility of less than a quarter-mile.

Snow seems to me really like Italy. 

The town of Capracotta in southern Italy holds the record for the city to get the most snow in one day. In March of 2015, more than 100 inches of snow accumulated in just 18 hours. That’s about five inches of snow per hour!

The snow was almost illegal. 

The 1991-1992 snow season was particularly bad for Syracuse, New York. More than 162 inches of snow fell on the city. So in March of 1992, the Syracuse Common Council passed a decree “on behalf of its snow-weary citizens” that said any more snow before Christmas Eve of that year was outlawed. But Mother Nature must have missed the memo: It snowed two days later, and the following winter brought even more snow.