Being flaky?
Snowflakes, that is. Living in Michigan, we get a lot of these buggers. Walking down the street, if you are not careful, they will sneak into your unbuttoned shirt collar, or worst, the exposed orifices of your head. I know, when it comes to snowflakes, people think of words like unique, beautiful and shortlived. Sounds like a damn Wong Kar Wai love story, fleeting, ephemeral.Perhaps not. I got to thinking about how long a snowflake actually "lives." The Chinese calls the really big flakes "goose feathers" which vividly describes the gorgously fluffiness of these essentially water crystals. And it seems like these buggers can ride forever on the backs of the frigid northern wind. Nevertheless, when the flakes fall, as any object falling toward the earth surface, it will eventually reach a terminal velocity whereupon the downward acceleration due to the gravity is negated by the upward lift due to air resistance. So I thought if I could find out about the terminal velocity of the snowflakes, I could guess-timate the lifespan of a snowflake.
As it turns out, the velocity of a falling snowflakes is generally thought to be 1 m/s. The type of cloud that generate snowflakes is the nimbostratus clouds, low-level, with the base usually between 100-2000 m. So it could take a snowflake as much as 30 minutes from leaving its cradle to reaching its ultimate destiny--some cold asphalt, a patch of thirsty soils, or if lucky, the warmth of a human touch. Who would have thought a snowflake could live for so long. Just imagine the trip, never thought I say this, it makes me wish I could be a snowflake.
posted by hedgehog @ 9:15 PM
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