Somebody Needs To Go Back To School

I was reading an article about giant snowflakes today, and seeing this as the very first sentence made me cringe (emphasis mine):

Since at least the 19th century, people have periodically claimed to see giant snowflakes falling from the sky -- the size of saucers and plates or even larger, their edges turned up, their heaviness making them descend faster than small flakes.

Geez Louise!! How did the writer ever make it out of high school, not to mention to the New York Times, without hearing about Galileo?