Ken Libbrecht's Field Guide to Snowflakes

aftergrowth plates basal facet basal surface branches and sidebranches branching instability bubbles bullet rosette Capped bullet capped columns cloud droplets columnar complex shapes corners Crossed Plates crystal twin crystals grow dark-field double plate edges especially evaporation groove example fernlike stellar dendrites filter flakes flat freezing graupel growth behavior hexagonal plate hexagonal prism Hoarfrost crystals hollow columns Hollow Plates humidity inches induced sidebranching event isolated bullet knife-edge instability larger lattice magnifier microscope objective Mitutoyo molecular morphology diagram numerical aperture patterns photograph picture plate Case Study plate-like produce ribs right shows rime droplets rime particles scrolls sectored plate shown simple prism single crystal sixfold symmetry snow crystal growth snow crystal types snowflake watching specimen split star sprouted stellar crystals stellar plates structure Sublimation supersaturation thick thin plates tip to tip twelve-branched snowflakes twin column typically voids warmer snowfalls water molecules water vapor weather front