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Different Kinds of Precipitation!. Drizzle. Very fine water drops that fall slowly and close together. R ain. Larger drops; fall faster and farther apart than drizzle. Snow.
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Drizzle • Very fine water drops that fall slowly and close together
Rain • Larger drops; fall faster and farther apart than drizzle
Snow • Forms when ice crystals in a cloud collide and clump together; when they fall into warmer air, they partially melt into sticky wet clusters. If the air is too warm, snow flakes melt completely into rain
Sleet • Starts as rain, but the rain falls into a layer of cold air; raindrops become super cooled and freeze
Freezing rain • Rain, but it freezes as it hits solid surfaces • Dangerous – causes sheet ice or glaze on sidewalks, trees, roofs and power lines • If ice heavy enough, power lies may break
Hail • Frozen precipitation, in the form of balls or irregular clumps of ice • Begins to form when water freezes around a tiny crystal of ice • The ice crystals rise and fall repeatedly with the updraft and downdraft of air currents in thunderclouds • It grows by collecting smaller ice particles, cloud droplets, and super-cooled raindrops that freeze onto it • The growing hailstone is kept aloft by strong updrafts until it becomes too heavy and falls • The stronger the updraft, the larger the hailstone • Often see it the summer – do not melt before reaching the ground!