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Sleet and freezing rain occur by a similar process, but are different forms of precipitation. Both are most common in the winter. Sleet occurs when snowflakes melt into a raindrop in a wedge of ...
Graupel (/ ˈ ɡ r aʊ p əl /; German: [ˈɡʁaʊpl̩] ⓘ), also called soft hail or snow pellets, [1] is precipitation that forms when supercooled water droplets in air are collected and freeze on falling snowflakes, forming 2–5 mm (0.08–0.20 in) balls of crisp, opaque rime.
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.
Wilson Bentley micrograph showing two classes of snowflake, plate and column. Missing is an example of a needle. The shape of a snowflake is determined primarily by the temperature and humidity at which it is formed. [8] Freezing air down to −3 °C (27 °F) promotes planar crystals (thin and flat).
If we can’t have snow, we might as well learn what all that other frozen precipitation is.
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Because freezing rain does not hit the ground as an ice pellet (called "sleet") but still as a rain droplet, it conforms to the shape of the ground, or object such as a tree branch or car. This makes one thick layer of ice, often called "glaze". Freezing rain and glaze ice on a large scale is called an ice storm. Effects on plants can be severe ...
StormTeam 5's Mike Wankum explains the difference between freezing rain and sleet, and how each affect the roads.