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Hail is a form of solid precipitation. [1] It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. [2] It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. [3] Ice pellets generally fall in cold weather, while hail growth is greatly inhibited during low surface temperatures.
A megacryometeor is a very large chunk of ice which, despite sharing many textural, hydro-chemical, and isotopic features found in large hailstones, is formed under unusual atmospheric conditions which clearly differ from those of the cumulonimbus cloud scenario (i.e. clear-sky conditions).
As the hailstone ascends it passes into areas of the cloud where the concentration of humidity and supercooled water droplets varies. The hailstone's growth rate changes depending on the variation in humidity and supercooled water droplets that it encounters. The accretion rate of these water droplets is another factor in the hailstone's growth.
Using “a huge database” of real hailstone shapes to look at how mass, shape and size are related, researchers found a hailstone in the typical roundish shape could reach roughly 10 inches in ...
One hailstone that fell in Texas on April 28, 2021, set a new state record at 6.4 inches in diameter, and Colorado set its state record with a 5.25-inch stone that fell on Aug. 8, 2023.
They are indicative that some form of precipitation forms and exists at the freezing level, a varying point in the atmosphere in which the temperature is 0°C. [4] In mid-latitude regions, convective precipitation is often associated with cold fronts where it is often found behind the front, occasionally initiating a squall line .
Research suggests climate change will make hailstones larger. Already, hail has caused higher damage costs in the U.S. this year than hurricanes and floods put together.
The hailstone then may undergo 'wet growth', where the liquid outer shell collects other smaller hailstones. [41] The hailstone gains an ice layer and grows increasingly larger with each ascent. Once a hailstone becomes too heavy to be supported by the storm's updraft, it falls from the cloud. [42]