The snow, so fine that I could see individual crystals alight on my dark sleeve, floated around me, fluttering ever so slowly downward. In the brilliant low sunlight, the snow crystals glittered like diamond against the darkening eastern sky. The latter resemble stubby pencils rather than the delicate branched snowflake shape our mind conjures up at the first mention of snow. When their size is less than 15-20 micrometres across, crystal plates tumble randomly through the air as they fall. But when the plates are larger, they fall so that their long dimension parallels the ground, floating downward like descending flying saucers.
Columns too fall with their long axis paralleling the ground.
At times, the columns rotate while falling like slow, miniature helicopter blades. As I continued my walk homeward, the sun sank lower in the sky and was only minutes away from setting. Looking westward toward the solar orb, I saw a crimson pillar of light rising from the top of the solar disk. Sun pillars are the most commonly seen form of pillar , but they can form in moonlight and strong artificial light as well. Snow crystals with plate or column shapes provide an excellent surface from which the light may reflect toward the viewer's eyes.