{"id":735,"date":"2010-01-08T20:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-08T20:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/01\/beautiful-dendrites-3.html"},"modified":"2012-05-20T19:28:02","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T00:28:02","slug":"beautiful-dendrites-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/01\/beautiful-dendrites-3.html","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful Dendrites!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A billion years ago, in one of my meteorology classes, I was taught the temperature ranges at which snowflakes will form their different potential shapes. I remember getting tested on the information, too.<\/p>\n

“At what temperature ranges will capped columns form?”<\/p>\n

Heck if I know now, but I can now find out with the click of a button….<\/p>\n

This is from Wikipedia’s entry on snow<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“The shape of the snowflake is determined broadly by the temperature and humidity at which it is formed.[12] The most common snow particles are visibly irregular. Planar crystals (thin and flat) grow in air between 0 \u00b0C (32 \u00b0F) and ?3 \u00b0C (27 \u00b0F). Between ?3 \u00b0C (27 \u00b0F) and ?8 \u00b0C (18 \u00b0F), the crystals will form needles or hollow columns or prisms (long thin pencil-like shapes). From ?8 \u00b0C (18 \u00b0F) to ?22 \u00b0C (?8 \u00b0F) the shape reverts back to plate-like, often with branched or dendritic features. At temperatures below ?22 \u00b0C (?8 \u00b0F), the crystal development becomes column-like, although many more complex growth patterns also form such as side-planes, bullet-rosettes and also planar types depending on the conditions and ice nuclei.[15][16][17] If a crystal has started forming in a column growth regime, at around ?5 \u00b0C (23 \u00b0F), and then falls into the warmer plate-like regime, then plate or dendritic crystals sprout at the end of the column, producing so called “capped columns.”[12]”<\/p>\n

I found this description of this specific kind of dendrite from CalTech<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Fernlike Stellar Dendrites. Sometimes the branches of stellar crystals have so many sidebranches they look a bit like ferns, so we call them fernlike stellar dendrites. These are the largest snow crystals, often falling to earth with diameters of 5 mm or more. In spite of their large size, these are single crystals of ice — the water molecules are lined up from one end to the other. Some snowfalls contain almost nothing but stellar dendrites and fernlike stellar dendrites. It can make quite a sight when they collect in vast numbers, covering everything in sight. The best powder snow, where you sink to your knees while skiing, is made of stellar dendrites. These crystals can be extremely thin and light, so they make a low density snowpack.”<\/p>\n

Oh…I just found this picture that seems to sum it up pretty well:\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, here are some pictures I took today from when the temperature was around 0F, and these are some of the prettiest dendrites I’ve seen with my own eyes (rather than in a book). I’m posting these pics nice and large so you can see the elaborate detail. Isn’t science beautiful?<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A billion years ago, in one of my meteorology classes, I was taught the temperature ranges at which snowflakes will form their different potential shapes. I remember getting tested on the information, too. “At what temperature ranges will capped columns form?” Heck if I know now, but I can now find out with the click […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[617,621,619,618],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-bR","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":285,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/12\/21-degrees-in-2-hours.html","url_meta":{"origin":735,"position":0},"title":"21 Degrees in 2 Hours…","date":"27 December 08","format":false,"excerpt":"...More Nebraska weather fun. A cold front came through and plummeted our temperature from 53F at 9pm to 32F at 11pm.It got up to 60F today! No jackets! We can see our lawn again! Perhaps today should have been the day to take down the Christmas lights, while we could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"cold weather\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":265,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/11\/if-its-going-to-be-this-cold.html","url_meta":{"origin":735,"position":1},"title":"If It’s Going to be THIS Cold…","date":"08 November 08","format":false,"excerpt":"It's friggin' cold here. Highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s...winds 15-20 knots, gusting into the 30s.It's been like this since Thursday. It's going to be like this for a while.Okay okay okay...I'm a wuss.I grew up on the coast. When you live near water, cold temperature spells are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"cold weather\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":324,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/02\/meanwhile-back-at-the-ranch.html","url_meta":{"origin":735,"position":2},"title":"Meanwhile…Back at the Ranch…","date":"14 February 09","format":false,"excerpt":"The kids (and that means Dave too) were enjoying their first \"workable\" snow of the season.What does \"workable\" mean? It means snow angels that didn't blow away, plus snowmen and snow forts!Enjoy the slideshow!","rel":"","context":"In \"air force reserves\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":269,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/11\/snow-the-lack-of-it.html","url_meta":{"origin":735,"position":3},"title":"Snow…the Lack of It!","date":"21 November 08","format":false,"excerpt":"So...now that Dave and I have left the Raleigh, NC area, they're getting snow! Again!Meanwhile, we're still high and dry here in Omaha...but hey, it got down to 10 F this morning!Those who are closer friends with the Vollmers have heard the stories of the freak weather we bring to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nebraska\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2730,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2013\/11\/a-chill-in-the-air.html","url_meta":{"origin":735,"position":4},"title":"A Chill in the Air","date":"06 November 13","format":false,"excerpt":"Winter is most certainly on its way! Here in eastern Colorado we're now experiencing days where the high temperature doesn't exceed 35F, and the lows are dipping into the teens. Colorado Springs is well known for its very mercurial weather, it could be 70F one day, 20F the next. Dave\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"chill\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/IMG_8501.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":133,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/05\/hot-stuff.html","url_meta":{"origin":735,"position":5},"title":"Hot Stuff","date":"08 May 08","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest laptop trauma: I believe the fan has stopped working. Our weather station receiver that feeds the outdoor weather to our websites also has a local thermometer and while it used to read the ambient temperature pretty well next to my laptop, it's now reading the mid-80s consistently.Maybe that's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"computer\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}