12/24/2025
It’s a Christmas crisis of dendritic dimensions- a mutation of meteorological magnitude. This is the time of year when some of us are blanketed with a blizzard of Christmas and Holiday cards featuring snowflakes. ❄️❄️ What joy doth flake of snow bring to those starved of a Norman Rockwell idyllic winter scene? Oft times, something is awry that may get past your eye. I’m referring to artistic renderings of snowflakes that are inaccurate, in a science sort of way. I need to draw your attention to imposter snowflakes.
It's a “snowfake” scam that’s easy to fall for. It’s like being duped by counterfeit thousand-dollar bills. Those are things most of us don’t get our hands on. Ice crystals are frozen water, aka H2O. The basic shape of an ice crystal is a hexagon (6 sides), not an octagon (8 sides). A single ice crystal has symmetry. Ice crystals, just like the ones in your freezer, or on your car or window on a frosty morning, can grow and sprout dendrites along their 6 arms, resulting in ornate hexagons. This you might notice if you scrape some freezer frost, put it on a dark cloth and look at it with a magnifying glass, without letting your hot breath melt it.
Now that you are aware, have some fun with your kids and see how often they can spot the counterfeit snowflake of more or less than 6 sides, on Christmas cards and displays and on TV commercials. With all fairness to designers and graphic artists, I agree that it is easier to draw a snowflake with 4 or 8 sides, and it is true that Fred Flintstone only has 4 fingers on each hand, and no one seems bothered by that.
I’ll be crystal clear, yes, Virginia, there is a hexagonal snowflake, and no two are identical. I know, you’re saying, “Alan, you have a little too much time on the five fingers of your hands.” To that, I offer a frosty stare.
This “Imposter snowflake” is an excerpt from my book, Weather Things You Always Wanted to Know, originally published in 2019 in Lagniappe Newspaper.
