NOTE: this entry will probably appeal more to weatherbugs.
We got a weather alert today for graupel and we had to look it up. Turns out graupel (aka soft hail or snow pellets) is one of the many types of frozen precipitation.
Hail is a form of precipitation that occurs when updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops upward into extremely cold areas of the atmosphere where they freeze into ice. To be considered hail, the frozen precipitation pieces must have a diameter greater than 5mm (.20”).
Sleet (a.k.a. ice pellets) are small, translucent balls of ice, and smaller than hail. They often bounce when they hit the ground.
Snow forms mainly when water vapor turns to ice without going through the liquid stage. There is no thunderstorm updraft involved in either of these processes.
But what is graupel you ask?
Graupel (a.k.a. soft hail or snow pellets) are soft small pellets of ice created when supercooled water droplets coat a snowflake.
Here is some graupel on our truck bed cover.
From the web comparing sleet to graupel with better photos.
It has been a wild two weeks going from running the furnace to needing to run the air conditioner to hearing graupel on our roof right now.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
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