Percipitation

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Snow Snow begins as frozen droplets of water in a cloud, or ice crystals. They collect in a cloud into snow flakes, become too heavy in the cloud and slowly make their way to the ground as snow.

Rain Rain is simply cloud droplets that become too heavy to be suspended inside the cloud. They will eventually fall to the ground in small droplets of water.

Hail Hail is formed when frozen droplets of water are cuaght in the strong updrafts of a thunderstorm. As the droplets are pushed around, they come in contact with each other and stick. As they gain volume and mass, the winds cannot hold up the objects and they fall through the sky and come in contact with the ground. Hail is not confined to winter, it can happen anytime if the storm that forms it is strong enough. Also, since hail requires strong updrafts for its formation, the stronger the storm, the larger the hailstones.

Sleet Sleet forms in a snowstorm when there is a small layer of warmth inside a cloud. What happens is that when the snow falls, it partially melts in the warm layer then recools as it comes in contact with the ground. In essence sleet is raindrops that are freeze, and that rebound off of the ground.

Freezing Rain Freezing rain is similar to sleet in that it is rain that melts COMPLETELY in a warm layer of a shower then "supercools" when it hits the ground.So instead of bouncing off of objects like sleet, freezing rain freezes on the object it hitsand forms a thin layer of ice on it.

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