‘Snowflake’ Bentley proved common belief
November was certainly a good month for snow across the Inland Northwest. Skiers, snowboarders and resort operators have enjoyed the great conditions in the mountains.
While looking at all the new snow across our region, it’s almost hard to believe that each snowflake is different from the other. This was proven by Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley in 1885.
Bentley, born in 1865, lived his entire life on a small farm in tiny Jericho, Vt. My wife, Sally, and I lived 15 miles from that town for about eight years before relocating to this area. We would occasionally visit the Jericho Historical Society to see his work on display.
During Bentley’s 50-year-plus career, he painstakingly photographed more than 5,300 distinct patterns of snow crystals concluding accurately that “no two snowflakes have ever been identical.” In 1885, at age 20, he successfully adapted his microscope to a bellows-type camera and soon became the first person in recorded history to photograph a single snow crystal. In his 66-year lifetime, Bentley collected more photographic negatives of snowflakes than all other observers combined.
On his farm property, Bentley would document his snowflakes with his camera, usually in subzero conditions. He built a shed for taking his pictures and collected individual snow crystals on a board painted black. He would lift the flake off the board with a splinter of wood and then place the crystal on a microscope slide. The snowflake would then be photographed through the microscope using a 50-second exposure. His photographs also proved that all snowflakes are “hexagonal,” or “six-sided.”
These beautiful photos eventually became so popular that he actually sold 200 of them to the jewelry store Tiffany’s in New York City, which used the crystal patterns for designing expensive broaches and pendants. The photographs have also been featured in hundreds of books, magazines and newspapers around the world.
Bentley died of pneumonia on Christmas Eve in 1931, shortly after trudging through a Vermont snowstorm.
Inland Northwest weather
As typical for this time of year, fog and freezing fog has been plaguing our region. As high pressure moved across much of the northwestern U.S., the air became stagnant. With plenty of moisture on the ground, and very little wind to clean out the air, fog has been forming, often resulting in slick road conditions. We often see lots of persistent fog in the late fall and winter as the angle of the sun is too low to help dissipate it. The dense fog forms as temperatures drop to the dew point level (the temperature at which the air is saturated), especially during night and early morning hours.
The high pressure system responsible for the foggy weather is expected to weaken to allow some moisture and some mixing to our air next week.
However, it still looks like much of our lowland snowpacks will melt off as milder air continues to move into our region. Ski conditions, however, should still remain very good in the mountains. The wet November is now being replaced by a drier December as Pacific storms are beginning to head southward into California.
But, all may not be lost for those who want more snow in the lowlands. Just ahead of the Christmas holidays, there is a good chance of another frigid Arctic invasion that will likely give us some of that white stuff just in time for Santa. More on this next week.
Despite the warm El Nino, I still see January becoming our snowiest and, perhaps, coldest month of the entire winter season, easily topping November for harsh conditions. However, February is looking dry once again like it’s been during the past couple of winters.