Author's Note:
Whew, here it is, part two of my tale. I had it take longer because my friend who normally edits for me was out of town and couldn't help. So this is self-edited. Any errors are mine, and likely stupid ones at that.
Warning: Contains copious amounts of snow.
Chapter 3
"Wait... How much? You said feet, right?" Gone was the bright bubbly Kat I was seeing before. Standing by the table next to me, she looked like a scared little girl. It made my heart ache, as all I wanted to do was stand up and comfort her, pull her in to a nice, warm, secure hug, running my fingers through those delightful, red curls, whispering words of comfort, using my other hand to trace her back and find spots of tension to ease...
"Paul?" her shaky and clearly worried voice snapped me out of my daydream. I could merely nod, her brows furrowing more. "What are we gonna do?"
Having lived in the mountains since my freshman year, I'd experienced only two other storms close to this intensity. This current snowfall rate made those look like light flurries. Had we been on I-70, those plows probably would have been able to keep up with it. But anything over an inch an hour tended to close these smaller highways. I know Helen, our waitress, had just mentioned a local hotel, or cabins, I think she had called them. That would keep us warm and safe.
"Ka..." I cleared my voice, made sure it was working. I was worried she'd freak at my suggestion. "Our, uh, Helen, our waitress, she, well, she said that some cabins down the road would likely be our best bet for this storm." I felt my face getting warmer. I hoped she didn't freak out. Of course, she really had nowhere to go. It didn't look like she'd had a purse or wallet or anything. "That is, to uh, wait it out."
"Oh, we can wait it out? Will it pass? Will we be ok? Where will all the snow go? Can we drive through it?" Up to this point, she hadn't spoken nearly this fast. I needed to help comfort her. I needed to help her, but I was scared I'd mess it up. Every time I had spoken to a girl, or woman, I had found attractive in any manner, I had messed it up in some way, either by clamming up and being a bore, or by saying weird and unrelated things, seeming like some kind of eccentric weirdo. My heart pounded in my chest. It was just talking to her. Katherine. The girl with the red curls, the one who had called me cute, her guardian angel, fun to talk to. She needed me to help her, being left stranded miles from home in a strange place, seeing things she'd never experienced before.
"It... will be ok." As if just saying it made it so, I felt a sudden calmness starting to replace my rapid pulse. "I've experienced storms like this before." I left out the part that this was the worst one I'd ever seen. "They dump a lot of snow in a short period, but the plows usually clear it when the blizzard passes, once they can see the road safely again. Our best bet is to stay here where we have access to food, water, shelter, everything we need, rather than trying to beat this thing. Helen said they've already closed the highway up ahead, the way we would be heading. We could head back the way we came, back towards my town and house, but there's a chance this blizzard could get us stuck in that small pass too." As I spoke, she seemed to be calming just a little. I gestured for her to sit back down.
"So... we wait?" She slid back into the booth, her brows starting to uncrease.
"Yep. And, since we've got our pancakes, I think our omelets are almost ready. So dig in, eat up here, and then we'll go see if we can find a room until the blizzard passes and roads close."
"God... I always wanted to see snow, but this... this is incredible! There's just so much of it. And... you can't even see that valley we were just looking at! Paul, this is just like those dust storms back home in Phoenix! They move in so fast and you can't see anything."
I remember growing up witnessing several dust storms roll through Phoenix. Some were so bad you had to cover your face just to breathe. She did have a point though. Blizzards and dust storms had quite a bit in common.
"That's... actually a really perfect analogy, Kat." She smiled at my compliment. "The only difference, this storm leaves behind lots more accumulations than dust storms."
"So, feet, right? You said 6 feet? That's taller than I am! I can't even picture that, like, what? The snow is like a wall then? Or more like a sand pit?"
"It depends on the type of snow falling, and if and how it drifts." She raised her eyebrows at that. "Oh, yeah, a drift is just a collection of blown snow, where the winds carry it and stack it higher. You know, if we're getting 3-6 feet of snow, we could see drifts higher than that, easily." She started to look a bit worried at that, so I cleared my throat and changed that line of thought." Anyway, just as we were coming in, the air was cold; the snow was coming like tiny ice pellets, rather than large flakes. See, right here on the window?" I pointed to a large, flat flake that was sliding down the glass. "This indicates that there's abundant moisture in this storm, feeding the intensity. It also shows that it's really cold high in the sky where these guys likely formed. So our temperature probably dropped a few degrees. These are called dendrites. They've formed because the air is supersaturated with moisture and the temperature is above column and plates formations, but below needles. Basically, it's cold enough that these elaborate structures formed almost instantly."
"Wow... Paul, you are amazing! I never knew there was so much information about snow!" Her eyes were wide, and she had a small smile on her face. It was a stunning look for her. Those beautiful emerald eyes were captivating. Her gaze travelled to the window, watching the flakes that hit against the window. "Is it true about the uniqueness of snowflakes, that each one is different than the next?"
I grinned. This was an oft asked question, one I loved answering, since it was both simple and complex, all at the same time. And, it looked like she was calming down.
"Do you want the short answer, or the long version?"
"Do we have time for the long version?"
"We will."
"Then short for now, and tell me the long when we're at that cabin place."
"In short, yes. Every snowflake is extremely unlikely to look like any other one. Actually, if you were to be able to catch every single snowflake falling out in this storm – and believe me, that's a lot of snowflakes – there would be absolutely no exact duplicates. Essentially, snowflakes are made out of water molecules, all neatly arranged, but in slightly differing patterns. Since a typical flake might have over one pentillion water molecules - that's a billion billions - with well over 100 formations for a snow crystal's most basic shape, there's more arrangement possibilities than there are atoms theorized in the entire universe. But, there are cases where smaller ones, called nano-snowflakes, can be made up of as few as 275 molecules. They can have direct copies, of course."
"Paul, just what do you do for a living? Are you like, a researcher, some genius meteorologist?"
I took a bite of my pancake, noticing Helen was bringing over our omelets. We really did need to hurry up and get a room, and get some supplies before the snow got too dense and packed on the roads.
"In a way. I'm working on a dissertation at Mountain State College. I'm also a GTA, a graduate teaching assistant, helping out the professors there with things like labs and recitations."
"So, are you going to become a professor? And what are you getting your doctorates degree in? What's your dissertation about?" She was leaning forward now, asking questions after she'd finish a bite of pancake.
"Honestly, I'm not too sure right now. I'm getting a Ph.D. in chemistry, and my dissertation is actually about the relationship between quantum physics and the molecular complexity of snowflakes."
She giggled. "No wonder you know so much about water and snow. Here I was thinking you were some fancy, genius weatherman."
That giggle was intoxicating. And it seemed that no two giggles of hers were exactly alike, a phenomenon I would absolutely love to study in detail. Before I embarrassed myself with some silly, stupid grin, Helen arrived with our omelets.
