Flurry Facts

Snow had a lot of tricks. Sometimes it could make cars slide or people slip. Snow could lead to no school days for children. Snow could build up and be as high as a building or be plowed out of driveways into piles for snow forts.

Snow could bury you! It could snow day or night or it could snow for many days and nights – not stopping! Snow made work. With a lot of snow, you would need to shovel or plow to get out of your driveway, find the road, or even your house.

But snow also made winter fun. You could play in snow. Ski, sled, or snowboard. You could build a snowman or throw a snowball.

Leave footprints and paw prints or tracks in the freshly fallen snow. Snow angels were fun to make and dogs love jumping in snow piles.

Snow was like magic. It could change how something looked. It was like the game of hide and seek in nature. You could wake up, and find the ground was hiding underneath the snow!  Snow was also beautiful to watch fall.

The 8 Types of snowflakes

Stellar Dendrites – most recognizable, star shaped

Dendrite means – tree-like

Columns – appear most often with temperatures around 21 ℉

Needles – thin, slender ice crystals that look like tiny ice needles. Forming around 23 ℉

Diamond Dust – smallest of all snowflakes. Occurs in the coldest weather, sometimes when it’s sunny.

Triangular Crystals – aerodynamics change the shape. Not all have six sides

Rimed Ice Flakes – snow made of droplets fusing to the crystal. Blobs are called graupel

Twelve-branched – made when two dendrites collide. Not as rare as you think.

Where Stanley is found the most

The record for all-time snowfall in a single season is 1,140 inches (95 feet) at the Mount Baker Ski Area in Washington during the 1998–99 season.

The record for a single storm is 189 inches (15.75 feet) at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl, California, from February 13–19, 1959

The Andes Mountains in southern Chile, specifically the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, are likely the snowiest place on Earth, with some areas receiving up to 2,000 inches of snow annually.