There’s a new Google doodle today and it’s a pretty unusual one, designed to mark the 125th anniversary of the world’s biggest snowflake. It’s not clear why they’ve decided to single this particular event out, but then the Google doodles have always been pretty random.
The world’s biggest snowflake was recorded on January 28th 1887 in Fort Keogh, Montana. Records from the time claim that this snowflake was 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick. Does that sound credible to you? There are no photos of the snowflake, and you have to wonder whether such a thing is even possible. Nevertheless, the legend has stuck.
There is apparently no scientific reason why a snowflake couldn’t be that large, even if weather conditions would likely break such a fragile thing up pretty quickly. There have been reliable accounts of snowflakes as wide as six inches in the past couple of decades,