(upbeat music) - I'm Dan Baumgardt with the National Weather Service in La Crosse.

And I'm going to tell you the story about snowflakes.

So most people don't really think about it and think about how snowflakes are all different.

(upbeat music) When you look up at the clouds their one of two things are either water, droplets, or ice crystals.

So if you get up high enough you'll get ice crystals to form, really what you're doing there is you're taking the water that's in the air as a gas, and you're converting it into solid form or liquid form, which is the droplet or ice crystals.

What happens is these ice crystals will grow either vertically on the molecular level because of the way water is in the molecular form, it's in the form of hexagons.

So everything from the molecular level, all the way up to the crystal the snowflake level, is hexagons.

That's the basic building block for ice as water is converted from a gas over to these snowflakes or ice crystals.

And so what happens is these ice crystals will grow one of two ways.

They'll either form hexagons vertically, and you'll get these what are called needles or columns for snowflakes or they'll grow outward.

So it's one of two plans either out or up.

And so when they grow outward, they're just hexagons and they just grow outward and get bigger.

What governs, how they grow is the temperature in the atmosphere and the humidity level.

That is in that cloud.

So what humidity governance is usually the ornateness or the pristineness of the crystal, so you'll get these very finite structures, when the humidity level is at its highest level.

And so as that crystal falls now from the cloud and goes through different temperature regimes on its way down to the surface, it'll either grow horizontally, it'll grow vertically.

And if the temperature is the same all the way, it'll grow in the same manner.

So, if you start vertically and start to form these needles or columns and the temperature is the same, in the same range all the way down to the surface, it'll grow on that axis and it'll end up at the surface as a needle, or a column or a vertical.

'Cause those hexagons are just piling up.

If you change temperature regimes, you may start to grow vertically, and then go into a different temperatures regimes where it starts to grow outward.

So then you may end up with a needle, but then at the tops of them, you'll have these hexagons that are growing outward.

So you'll grow kind of look like a one of those cable wheels or that roll cable or fiber optic cable onto them.

(upbeat music) So the most popular ice crystals are ice crystals that are really irregular because they just have all these different temperatures regimes they flow through.

They may collide with other crystals.

Sometimes you get pristine temperatures regimes with the same all way down to the surface.

And when that happens, you get a very pure set of snow crystals that are found at the surface of one type.

(upbeat music) Certainly in the winter time, you get to experience snow and you get to experience the uniqueness of these snowflakes.

And so I would say the next time you're out and it's snowing, take a minute let the snowflakes fall on your arm or on your car and take a close look and see what they look like.

You don't need a microscope to see the difference in the snowflakes, just have to take the time to look at them and notice the difference.

(upbeat music) (wind blowing and people cheering)