Funotic.com Where Fun Never Ends
04. Snowstorms and Bombs
Did you know that a single snowstorm can drop more than 39 million tons of snow, carrying the energy equivalent to 120 atomic bombs? ‘The Great Blizzard of 1888’ was one of the most devastating snowstorms to hit New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The storm dumped up to 50 inches of snow. ‘The Great Snow of 1717’, ‘The Washington and Jefferson Snowstorm’, ‘The Long Storm of November 1798’ and the ‘Portland Storm’ are other major snowstorms that struck America.
03. The Fastest Ever Half-Marathon Run Barefoot on Snow
Dutch daredevil Wim Hof holds the world record for running the fastest half marathon barefoot on snow and ice. He completed the marathon in 2 hr 16 min 34 sec near Oulu, Finland, on 26 January 2007. Hof’s stunning abilities to withstand harsh winds, snow, ice and freezing temperatures won him the nickname ‘Ice Man’.
By courageously swimming 80 meters under the North Pole ice, Wim Hof earned another Guinness World Record.
02. The Largest Snow Sculpture
A team of 600 amazing sculptors unveiled at the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival held on December 20, 2007 – ‘Romantic Feelings’ – the world’s largest snow sculpture. The Olympic Games were the source of inspiration for the staggering 656 ft long and 115 ft tall sculpture. This magnificent ‘landscape’ was the centerpiece of the festival opened in the Heilongjiang Province, one of China’s coldest places.
01. The Snowflake Man
Throughout time, snowflakes have fascinated many eminent scientists and philosophers such as René Descartes, Johannes Kepler and Robert Hooke, but the man who literally devoted his entire life to showing us the diversity and beauty of snowflakes is American Wilson A. Bentley (February 9, 1865 – December 23, 1931).
This ‘snowtastic’ Top 10 list is a tribute to Wilson Bentley, the first man to capture snow crystals on film. Known as “The Snowflake Man”, Bentley captured more than 5000 photographs of snowflakes. He received international acclaim in the 19th century for his pioneering work in the fields of photomicrography, because he perfected a process of photographing snowflakes before they either melted or sublimed.
Bentley’s legacy is an extraordinarily rich one: a vast library of detailed journals, books, published articles and over 5000 photographs of “tiny miracles of beauty”, as he often referred to snowflakes.
