High up in some ice-filled clouds, sitting inside an airplane loaded with science instruments, Christian Nairy looked at pictures flashing on his computer screen. This high-altitude slideshow is displaying real-time images of cloud particles being sampled by a device out on the plane's wing — and some of the ice crystals looked like perfect little snowflakes.

Fox 5 Atlanta reports that NASA scientists are taking a close look at winter storms by using a Cold War era ER-2, a derivative of the Cold War-era Lockheed U-2. The team is based out of Dobbins Air Reserve for through next month.