Observation of composition factors of snowflakes

Abstract

To study the growth process of snowflakes, the composition factors (the number, shape and diameter of component snow crystals) were observed using a separation method of snowflakes.
For a given number of component crystals, the larger the average diameter of the crystals, the larger the diameter of the snowflakes is. The diameter of snowflakes can be expressed as a power of the number of crystals with the average diameter of crystals as a parameter.
When several crystals make a snowflake, its external form is planar, whereas with more than about ten crystals it nears a spherical form. It was confirmed that dendritic type crystals make larger snowflakes than radiating type crystals for the same number of crystals, because the average diameter of the former crystals is larger than the latter.