Friday, February 7, 2014

Graupel

Yesterday morning when I went to my car I saw tiny little snowballs like these on my windshield. They didn't look like snow or sleet. They looked like white nonpareils or polystyrene pellets. Thanks to David Paul on KHOU, I found out that they are called graupel. A new word for me.
Here is the definition from Wikipedia: "also called soft hail or snow pellets refers to precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water are collected and freeze on a falling snowflake, forming a 2–5 mm (0.079–0.197 in) ball of rime. Strictly speaking, graupel is not the same as hail or ice pellets."
This isn't my picture but one I found on the internet. I was much too cold to take a picture.


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