Let It Snow!

In Arizona, there was snow on the desert cactus this week! It seems that after dawdling through an unusually warm December -- unless you live in Denver! -- winter has finally arrived with a bang!

Up until this week, weather forecasters were predicting this to be one of the warmest and driest winters on record. Of course, that was before blizzards dumped tons of snow across the country from the Rockies to the Atlantic. Now? Who knows? You might want to keep that snow blower gassed up!

With all the dire predictions of global warming, perhaps we should just curl up in front of a toasty fire and contemplate the beauty of snow while we still can. On one of its 2006 holiday stamps, the US Postal Service features stunning photographs of snow crystals. Taken by Kenneth Libbrecht, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, each photograph captures a unique crystalline formation.

Interestingly, snow crystals created in the laboratory are identical small hexagons. It is only in nature that each snowflake is a unique and complex crystal structure, no two alike. The snowflakes shown on the stamps were photographed in Michigan, Alaska and Ontario, Canada. Libbrecht used a digital camera attached to a specially designed microscope to capture the images. It must have been chilly work as the photographs had to be taken outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures so the crystals wouldn't melt. Click the post title for more information and to order.

If you like winter, County Stamp Center has a huge selection of stamps on winter sports and activities. Olympic winter sports stamps are particularly popular, and County Stamp Center carries issues from numerous Olympic venues. Visit our website to find stamps on your favorite winter activity. Come to County Stamp Center for all your philatelic needs.