December 28, 2016
PUBLISHER’S CORNER
By Kari Smith
The Joys of Winter
Winter is one of those seasons that most people love or hate. I am one of those people that like winter. I love snow. I do not love freezing rain. I do not like bone chilling wind. This year when the first snowflakes started falling, we had great joy in our house. It was a beautiful wet snow for sledding and building a snowman. It was not a beautiful snow for shoveling. That night after we came in to warm up from our outdoor activities, we looked up some fascinating things about snowflakes.
Did you know?
1. In 1887, Montana’s Fort Keogh unofficially 
reported that snowflakes were “larger than milk pans.” They believed they were up to fifteen inches wide. Wouldn’t that be incredible to witness?
2. Did you snow is actually translucent and not white. Since it is translucent, light cannot pass through it, instead it reflects light. Like the skeptics in this house, you are probably wondering why it looks white then. Since snow is made up of many tiny surfaces, the light hits it and scatters it in many directions. It will actually bounce around from one surface to the next as it is reflected. This means no wavelength is absorbed or reflected with any consistency, so the light bounces back as the color white.
3. Each winter in the United States, at least 1 septillion ice crystals fall from the sky.
That’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – 24 zeros!
4. The most snow to fall in a 24-hour period in the United States was in 1921, 75.8 inches (over six feet) in Silver Lake, Colorado.
5. An igloo can be more than 100 degrees warmer inside than outside. Igloos are warmed entirely by body heat and since the compacted snow is approximately 90 to 95 percent trapped air, it is a great insulator.
6. North Dakota holds the record for most snow angels made simultaneously in one place. In 2007, 8,962 people plopped down and set the record!
7. The largest snowball fight on record took place in Seattle. On January 12, 2013, 5,834 snow fighters came together to create the largest snowball fight in the world.
While your days of sledding may have passed. I encourage to keep your spirits high as the days are now getting longer. I am sure we will have many cold and snowy days this month or at least I hope we do. I challenge you to enjoy the beauty of the season, spring is around the corner.
