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Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice. Mixtures of different types of precipitation, including types in different categories, can fall simultaneously. Liquid forms of precipitation include rain and drizzle.
Liquid forms of precipitation include rain and drizzle and dew. Rain or drizzle which freezes on contact with a surface within a subfreezing air mass gains the preceding adjective "freezing", becoming the known freezing rain or freezing drizzle. Slush is a mixture of both liquid and solid precipitation.
Standard National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rain gauge. A rain gauge (also known as udometer, pluviometer, ombrometer, and hyetometer) is an instrument used by meteorologists and hydrologists to gather and measure the amount of liquid precipitation in a predefined area, over a set period of time. [1]
In technical terms, the dew point is the temperature at which the water vapor in a sample of air at constant barometric pressure condenses into liquid water at the same rate at which it evaporates. [7] At temperatures below the dew point, the rate of condensation will be greater than that of evaporation, forming more liquid water.
In an aqueous solution, precipitation is the "sedimentation of a solid material (a precipitate) from a liquid solution". [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The solid formed is called the precipitate . [ 3 ] In case of an inorganic chemical reaction leading to precipitation, the chemical reagent causing the solid to form is called the precipitant .
Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation; their water vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate, so fog and mist do not fall. (Such a non-precipitating combination is a colloid .) Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated with water vapor: cooling the air or adding water vapor to the air.
Probability of precipitation (PoP) is a commonly used term referring to the likelihood of precipitation falling in a particular area over a defined period of time, which is commonly a day, half day, or hour. The PoP measure is meaningless unless it is associated with an interval of time.
The liquid water path also contributes to important cloud properties. As the value of the liquid water path increases, so does the albedo of the cloud. This increase in albedo is seen most quickly at the lower end of the liquid water path spectrum, that is, the smaller the amount of total water, the quicker the albedo increases.