6 Fun facts about snowflakes

Snowflakes are fun to watch falling down from the sky, but how much do you know about them? Accuweather explains some fun facts about the most fun form of precipitation.

Snow isn't just made up of snowflakes.

Snow is also made of sleet, which is created when snowflakes pass through the atmosphere and melt a little by the time they hit the ground.

Each snowflake is not unique.

It's a myth. Identical snowflakes have been found before and each snowflake has six sides because the molecules that make them up are hexagon-shaped.

Snowflakes are not at all white.

They are actually translucent, where light is reflected rather than passed through. Because of the snowflake's tiny surface, the light scatters in so many directions that it can't absorb or reflect consistently, and the color comes back as white.

We get a lot of it every year.

At least 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 septillion) ice crystals fall from the sky in the U.S. alone.

Though appearances can be deceiving.

One inch of snow makes about 1/10 of an inch of water.

And it's all drinkable.

At least 80 percent of freshwater is frozen, made of either ice or snow.