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Looking a little battered, Amtrak P42DC 130, the second Phase II heritage unit, leads a reasonably on-time train 8, the eastbound 'Empire Builder' out of Milwaukee at the KK Bridge interlocking searchlights.
For some reason this flake looks like a superhero comic figure. Probably subtly suggested by the triangular shield in the middle and the thrust out arm with a 'weapon flake' held in its hand.
It's a messy shot and I'm too lazy to clean it up.
Part of my collection of snowflakes captured throughout the afternoon. this is a single frame processed as is.
66307 'Ipswich Town', 99001 and 99002
Leicester Depot, 17/6/25
0Q66 1353 Avonmouth to Leicester Depot (delivery of two new class 99s)
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Frost-E event opens today 3PM SLT ❄️
LM: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Saint%20Martin/191/112/21
This the last one from my snowflake shoot. Not perfect on my part, still need to work on this technique.
Finally, a tree-like stellar dendrite this season! This was the only one found in a brief snowfall not on weather radar or forecasts. Out of the blue, a few snowflakes fell to the ground. This is not the first time I’ve seen this – for unknown reasons, some of my biggest and most beautiful snowflakes ever have fallen in nearly identical scenarios. So, what makes these snowflakes?
Temperatures in the clouds of around -15C (5F) and high humidity cause snowflakes to form larger, sprawling shapes. What’s interesting is how this snowflake started, requiring very different conditions: it started as a column. There is a very faint circular shape in the center of this gem, then surrounded by a larger strange-shaped top layer, very clearly indicating that this snowflake started life as a miniscule hexagonal column of ice.
Columns can form at various temperatures, notably warmer and colder than large dendrites. This requires a temperature shift of at least 5 degrees Celsius between initial nucleation and the main growth phase of the snowflake. Such shifts in temperature would seemingly be uncommon within a cloud, but these growth patterns are more common that you’d think.
One explanation is that this is caused by lake-effect snow. Normally, lake effect snow is unpretty clumps and clusters of ice, but in my geographic area, we have a long-term variant of this. Lake-effect snow originally forms over Georgian Bay (part of the Great Lakes) before traveling a distance that would normally take 45 minutes to drive. During this time, I hypothesize that snowflakes may start at warmer temperatures and then rising to higher levels where the temperatures drop considerably, creating complex gems like this. Maybe it’s only common due to my geographic conditions!
When you have a column that decides to transition into plate-type growth, you have a competition. Plates grow out of either side of the column, competing for resources to grow outward. Sometimes the race is neck-and-neck for a while, but in the end there’s always a victor. In this case, the bottom plate one on all six corners, but each fight (six, one for each corner) did not end at the same time. The top corner was an immediate victor, whereas the bottom left one was a long struggle; this resulted in the top plate extending much farther on top of the bottom in this area, keeping pace while it could.
It’s entirely possible that the parallel plates win half the battles but not the other half – or one wins 5, the other 1. So much variety based on constantly changing variables that if they differ by a fraction of a percent, result in massive changes to the evolution of a snowflake.
They also don’t always grow on the same plane as well, with subtle shifts in growth allowing for overlaps. Can you spot overlapping side-branches? For more on how to shoot great macro images like this, check out my upcoming book, due out in March: skycrystals.ca/product/pre-order-macro-photography-the-un...
As the snow fell, Renzo made it a point to devour as many flakes as possible!
Press "L" for best view....
Fall is upon us and the green is disappearing into radiant colors of amber, scarlet and burgundy. Little white flakes of perfection will soon appear but remember your woodland creatures. This pretty piece is in honor of those creatures. Beautiful ceramic toggle ,rondelle and twig barrel bead by Muddymuse. The toggle is looped with chips of jade, white turquoise, tiny wooden rounds, and pewter. Carved jade leaf bead plays off of the beautiful lampwork focal by Etsian, Janesbeads. Unique silver leaf agate oval donut embraces a precious ceramic face, the muse of the woodland creatures!