i think its a fair price to pay to be able to snowboard. my passion even though i live in florida i try to get up to a mountain at least 3 times a year

 

I'm from Seattle too (Bellevue actually) and the weather sucks, don't it? Every few years we get a good snow dump though. Last year was pretty good.

 

Yeah I actually live in the Bothell/Bellevue/Redmond/Kirkland/Woodinville area. I'm right in the middle of it all. Too bad there's no eastside meetup group [:@]

 

Frozen precipitation resulting from the growth of ice crystals from water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere.
As ice particles fall out in the atmosphere, they melt to raindrops when the air temperature is a few degrees above 32°F (0°C), or accumulate on the ground at colder temperatures. At temperatures above −40°F (−40°C), individual crystals begin growth on icelike aerosols (often clay particles 0.1 micrometer in diameter), or grow from cloud droplets (10 μm in diameter) frozen by similar particles. At lower temperatures, snow crystals grow on cloud droplets frozen by random molecular motion. At temperatures near 25°F (−4°C), crystals sometimes grow on ice fragments produced during soft hail (graupel) growth. Snow crystals often grow in the supersaturated environment provided by a cloud of supercooled droplets; this is known as the Bergeron-Findeisen process for formation of precipitation. When crystals are present in high concentrations (100 particles per liter) they grow in supersaturations lowered by mutual competition for available vapor.
Ice crystals growing under most atmospheric conditions (air pressure down to 0.2 atm or 20 kilopascals and temperatures 32 to −58°F or 0 to −50°C) have a hexagonal crystal structure, consistent with the arrangement of water molecules in the ice lattice, which leads to striking hexagonal shapes during vapor growth. The crystal habit (ratio of growth along and perpendicular to the hexagonal axis) changes dramatically with temperature. Both field and laboratory studies of crystals grown under known or controlled conditions show that the crystals are platelike above 27°F (−3°C) and between 18 and −13°F (−8 and −25°C), and columnlike between 27 and 18°F (−3 and −8°C) and below −13°F (−25°C).
Individual crystals fall in the atmosphere at velocity up to 0.5 m s−1 (1.6 ft s−1). As crystals grow, they fall at higher velocity, which leads, in combination with the high moisture availability in a supercooled droplet cloud, to sprouting of the corners to form needle or dendrite skeletal crystals.
Under some conditions crystals aggregate to give snowflakes. This happens for the dendritic crystals that grow near 5°F (−15°C), which readily interlock if they collide with each other, and for all crystals near 32°F (0°C). Snowflakes typically contain several hundred individual crystals.
When snow reaches the ground, changes take place in the crystals. At temperatures near 32°F (0°C) the crystals rapidly lose the delicate structure acquired during growth, sharp edges evaporate, and the crystals take on a rounded shape, some 1–2 mm (0.04–0.08 in.) in diameter. These grains sinter together at their contact points to give snow some structural rigidity. The specific gravity varies from ∼0.05 for freshly fallen “powder� snow to ∼0.4 for an old snowpack. See also Crystal growth; Precipitation (meteorology).
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More than you wanted to know......I am so smart.

 

My spidey-sense is telling me you went to answers.com

You didn't really type all that up, silly, you're not a scientist!

 

Im not a scientist, but it was interesting reading, none the less!

 

hey i grew up there. off of avondale and bear creek road

 

You want an interesting read, eh?

Well then, can you answer this question for me: what is quantanization?

(Hint: think quantum mechanics... Fourier transform a Helmhotz equation [any partial differential equation in invariance under time translations] and transform it with respect to time (THINK WAVE MECHANICS) if you still can't find it, ask me, I guess I'll explain for you [:'(])

 

Quantum mechanics is a fun subject. Too nebulous for me though. I'll do all the math involved (fourier transforms are easy as pie, and PDE's are child's play...) but the subject is too much of a stretch for my imagination. I prefer some nice solid finite element analysis, or rigid body kinematic analysis... those things I can actually see and imagine in my mind. Quarks? Baryons? Leptons? Screw that. It's too much like chemistry, imagining stuff that you can only see with an electron microscope.

 

Yeah, they aren't that that complicated; it's pretty straightforward until you hit the Pertubian and Scatter theories, and it gets even worse when you get into the Lagrangian / phase-space formulations.