Alberta Clippers drop down from the northern Rockies to blanket the upper Plains and Prairies with snow. Nor'easters charge up the Atlantic coast to dump rain and snow on New England and the Maritime Provinces. Winter storms in the later winter months are often more violent, but December snow storms frequently appear to have a magical quality. Often the first snows of the year fall from clouds pregnant with large, fluffy flakes that cover the fields and meadows like a goose-down duvet. When temperatures hang around the freezing point, you can almost feel an ironic warmth when surrounded by the falling flakes.
Most people call almost any frozen form of precipitation other than hail or sleet a snowflake.
But meteorologists are a bit more fussy. Technically the term snowflake refers to an assemblage of individual snow crystals that have collided together and remained fastened together during the fall. Snowflakes typically fall when air temperatures near the earth's surface are not far from the freezing mark. Snow crystals adhere to each other better at these temperatures. At very cold temperatures, snowflakes are uncommon and we see mostly snow crystals during a snow fall.