Snowflakes

Today, it's been bright, with the occasional snow flurry - very different from the grey and sleety weather we had been promised; and while going out to top up screenwasher-bottles and tyre pressures on the cars, I saw a number of actual hexagonally symmetric snowflakes for the very first time. The first that caught my eye was a perfect little star shape maybe 5mm across, but looking at the rest of the dusting of snow, there were more.

Usually snow comes as big fluffy flakes, or dusty crystals, or even coarser ones, more like the fancy sugar granules for coffee, such as accumulated on my windscreen one afternoon this week.