Before You Get Sick Of It, Take A Closer Look At That Snow

(A snowflake on a headband, as seen through a macro lens. Photo courtesy of Laurie Catalano)

Snow.

For many of us this time of year, it falls into the category of a lot of unsavory four-letter words. The ones you don’t use in front of your grandmother.

We think of shovels and aching backs and freezing in the early morning while we clear off the car to go to work.

Yes, it’s pretty to look at if you don’t have to go anywhere -- but have you ever realized just how pretty is really is? Snowflakes are actually pretty amazing. As is how they get to be those shapes.

Susannah Locke, writing on Vox.com, shared scientific information not only on why snowflakes form the shapes they do -- they form as many as 35 different shapes, according to the post -- but how temperature and physics can affect the shapes.

Meanwhile, Katharine Trendacosta, writing for the blog iO9.com, shared a few photographs of what some of those snowflakes look like through a macro lens on a camera. The photos were taken by a Russian photographer, Alexey Kljatov, and you can see more of his snowflake images here.

Seeing the beauty that has covered your driveway and cars and that has made your drive to work an adventure may not make any of those more palatable to deal with, but then again, maybe you’ll pause for a moment to look a little closer before you sweep it off the windshield.

(Psst. Don’t forget to clear the roof of your car, too.)

Editor’s note: The photo of the snowflake accompanying this article was taken by photography buff Laurie Catalano of Bloomfield Hills, Mich. earlier this month. She used a Nikon D600, 105mm macro lens, set on a tripod. The ISO was 2500, f/8, and 1/20 second.