Until I was about to enter my third decade of life, I didn't know that snowflakes actually existed. I had plenty of experience with paper snowflakes, and must have read many children's books full of artistic depictions of winter with falling snowflakes, and I must have even seen microscopic photos of perfect, ornate hexagonal snowflakes. Even more surprisingly, I grew up in an area with a fair amount of snow-the Pacific Northwest. I had been in snowstorms where billions of snowflakes fell for hours, leaving a foot or more of snow on the ground. And yet, I didn't believe that snowflakes were real things.

As a word of explanation, I should explain that the area that I grew up in has a a very mild climate, despite being far to the North. Oregon's latitude around the 45th Parallel would make it far to the north compared to the east coasts of North America or East Asia. But much like Europe, the proximity of a large ocean with prevailing westerlies means that Oregon has very wet winters, as opposed to the dry, cold winters of the East Coast and Midwest. Snow usually occurs when a warm, wet airmass from the Pacific hits a dry, cold continental airmass. Snow starts to fall, but the Pacific usually wins, and the warm ocean air usually turns to rain fairly quickly. So even though I had seen lots of snow, it was big, irregular globs of wet whiteness. I must have known on some level that snow crystals as they were displayed in photos existed, but I thought they were a microscopic phenomenon that were too small for people to see.

So you can imagine my surprise, and the amusement of my companions, when during my first Vermont snowstorm, I excitedly ran amongst jaded, winter-weary New Englanders and excitedly told them that I could actually SEE a distinct, six pointed snowflake, right there on my coat! I quickly learned that this is, actually, the normal way that many people experience snow.