Let it snow..

Ever since I was born, I always dream that it would snow in Malaysia one day. When day goes by, people are growing up mentally and physically and then we started to realize that it never snow where we live. Oh well, I still wish to touch the snow. I want to feel it on my cheeks, build a snowman on a snow land instead of building the sandcastle on the beach and throw a snowball at someone's face. I don't mind I'll get frost bitten, I just wish I could travel overseas and learn how to run in the snow.

During Christmas, it is traditional to decorate every places with lights and sometimes with illuminated snowflake, snowmen and other Christmas figures. I remember I've seen snowflakes the most because snowflakes are one of the most recognizable and endearing symbols of winter. It has it's delicate shape and it happens in real. Hence, I did some research about snowflakes.
There you go..

In western country where you will see snowflakes are particular form of water ice.Snowflakes form in clouds, which consist of water vapor.When the temperature decreases water freeze to become ice. And there's where science kicks in. There are several factors affect snowflake formation such as temperature, air currents, and humidity which are all influence their shape and size. Water might get mixed up with dirt and dust particles and affect crystal weight and durability.
Snowflake formation is a dynamic process.First, the tiny ice crystal becomes hexagonal (six-sided). This shape originates from the chemistry of the water molecule, which consists of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. The water molecules in a snowflake chemically bond to each other to form the six-sided flake due to the angle of the water molecule and its hydrogen-bonding, . The flake eventually sprouts six tiny branches. Each of these branches grows to form side branches in a direction and shape that are influenced by the clustering of water molecules on the ice crystal surfaces.

Researchers show that not all snowflakes are symmetrical. Changes in temperatures, presence of dirt, and other factors may cause a snowflake to be lop-sided. Yet it is true that many snowflakes are same in all side and intricate. This is because a snowflake's shape reflects the internal order of the water molecules. Ice and snow as water molecules in the solid state, form weak bonds (called hydrogen bonds) with one another. These ordered arrangements result in the symmetrical, hexagonal shape of the snowflake. During crystallization, the water molecules align themselves to maximize attractive forces and minimize repulsive forces. Consequently, water molecules simply arrange themselves to fit the spaces and maintain symmetry.

However, there's no snowflakes are alike due to the precise number of water molecules, spin of electrons, isotope abundance of hydrogen and oxygen, etc. But sometimes it is possible for two snowflakes to look exactly identical and any given snowflake probably has had a good match at some point in history. Anyhow, it is improbable that anyone would see two identical snowflakes since there are so many factors affect the structure of a snowflake.

And lastly, are you wondering why snow is white?I'm gonna tell you why.
During the formation of snowflakes, water droplets in cloud are saturated with dissolved gases. When the environment temperature decrease until freezing point, insoluble gases in snow are trapped inside and form tiny bubble. The size and the distribution of the tiny bubble are quite uniform due to small droplet size and fast freezing rate. Visible light are reflected by tiny bubble ; and because snowflakes have so many light-reflecting surfaces they scatter the light into all of its colors, so snow appears white.