Snowflake Bentley & More

Since the snow is flying in various parts of the northeast and in the R2R mountains to the west, many folks are worried about road conditions, missing work/school, shoveling out the house and garage, etc.  I confess to not being a snow fan .... if it shows up for a day, the roads are still clear, and then the snow disappears, well that's the kind of snow I like. Many folks are the opposite ... the more snow the better.  Regardless of whether you like snow or not, most are intrigued by the snowflakes themselves. Probably the vast majority do not know that the discovery that "no two snowflakes are alike" was made in the small rural town of Jericho, Vermont by Wilson A. Bentley (1865-1931).  The video above (about 8 minutes) documents how Wilson Bentley came to photograph snowflakes - no easy task and quite remarkable. There is also an official website if you'd like to know more (biography) and see other information, including 'snowflake links'.

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Snowflake Bentley was the 'first', but there are some more recent snowflake images that have shown up and they are absolutely stunning. Russian photographer Alexey Kljatov's collection of high-resolution magnified flakes makes this widely-held belief that no two snowflakes are alike more convincing. The photographer has provided a Flickr link to many of his images (one picture from the link is shown below). Be sure and look at them all .... perhaps it will change your perspective of all that "white stuff" next time you're shoveling snow!

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For some man-made snow art, check out Simon Beck's facebook page, specifically the photo albums ..... the page is public, so you should be able to see the images. He makes designs with footprints in the snow and they are quite complex and beautiful.

Enjoy the snow however you choose to experience it  .... whether out and about or inside, staying nice and warm and looking at video and pictures!

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Note: At the time I started working on this post, the weather widget on the blog was showing 2 degrees and 32 mph winds at Wintergreen! Not surprisingly, there was a Severe Weather Alert for 'wind chill' ...... if you're going to be outside, stay safe out there!!