Janko Gravner at UC Davis and David Griffeath at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have modeled snowflake growth, as reported on [this web page][1]: > the researchers were able to recreate a wide range of natural snowflake shapes. Rather than trying to model every water molecule, it divides the space into three-dimensional chunks one micrometer across. The program takes about 24 hours to produce one "snowfake" on a modern desktop computer. <br /> ![Snowflake][2]<br /> Paper, code, and movies on this modeling are available [here][3]. A more physically based, 3D model is explored in the paper "Monte Carlo Simulation of the Formation of Snowflakes," by Maruyman and Fujiyoshi [Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences][4], 2005. Comparisons of the shape to "observed snowflakes" are made. [1]: http://www.physorg.com/news119784799.html [2]: http://people.csail.mit.edu/~orourke/MathOverflow/Snowflake.jpg [3]: http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/Snowfakes.htm [4]: http://journals.ametsoc.org/toc/atsc/62/5