In the January 2008 issue of Discover magazine, Susan Kruglinski lists “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Snow.” With all the snow the Merrimack Valley has gotten lately, perhaps you can ponder a few of these facts while you’re outside shoveling:

• No two alike? …Many [snow] crystals are almost identical in their early stages of growth, and some of the fully formed ones are pretty darned similar
• A snow crystal can be 50 times as wide as it is thick
• According to Guinness World Records, the largest snowflake ever recorded was a 15-incher that besieged Fort Keogh, Montana, in 1887
• In Antarctica, the hard, flat snow reflects sound waves with incredible efficiency. Some researchers say they have heard human voices a mile away

Read the rest of the “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Snow” article at discovermagazine.com, or check out the Chelmsford Library’s copy.

Source:
Kruglinski, S. (2008, January). 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Snow. Discover, 29(1), 80.

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