As the East Coast braces for the first ferocious snowstorm of the season, we wanted to revisit a frosty adage: Is it true that no two snowflakes are the same? Never, ever ever?

Not quite, said Kenneth G. Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, who found a way to create what he calls “identical twin” snowflakes in his lab.

Since each snowflake faces a different turbulent path through the atmosphere, each twist, turn and fall grants it a unique symmetry. But if you subtract nature’s volatility from the equation, then these icy flowers are no longer guaranteed uniqueness.