What are some examples of precipitation?
1 Answer
Precipitation includes rain, hail, sleet, and snow.
Rain occurs when water vapor condenses around dust particles in the clouds, which eventually get too big for the cloud to hold, so they fall, gathering even more water and getting even larger on their way to the ground.
Hail is ice that falls from the sky. Hail forms within thunderstorm clouds when upward moving air keeps small spheres of frozen water from falling. The spheres increase in size as drops of very cold water hit them and freeze. Eventually the balls of ice become so large and heavy that they fall to the ground as hailstones.
Sleet forms when raindrops freeze into ice on the way to the ground. Sleet is smaller than hail and snow.
Snow is ice that falls from the sky. Snow forms when water vapor turns directly from a gas into its solid form, ice, in a process called deposition.
