Precipitation 01
Precipitation 01 : (Meteor) Any form of water condensing in the atmosphere and falling to earth or condensing directly on objects on the ground. In general, the fallout can be categorized into five types: liquid, mixed liquid-solid, solid, subliming, and suspended forms. (1) Liquid: The most common liquid form is rain, consisting of water droplets ranging from 0. 5 to 5 mm in diameter falling from cumulus clouds. Drops larger than 5 mm tend to break up. Drizzle is a gentle sprinkle consisting of droplets finer than rain and falling in showers from fog or thick stratus clouds. Also called: Mist. Freezing rain is rain or drizzle that freezes to form a sheet of ice when it reaches the ground. Also called: Freezing Dizzle; Glazed Frost; Ice Storm; Glaze Storm; Silver Thaw; or Sleet Storm. (2) Solid: The most common solid precipitation is snow, which falls in the form of symmetric hexagonal shapes or six-pointed spangles, sometimes agglomerating into large irregular flakes. Snow pellets, also called Graupel or Soft Hail, are soft opaque ice particles, irregular and sometimes scalloped at the edges with protruding crystals, typically 2 to 5 mm in diameter and falling in showers. Snow grains are similar to snow pellets but are smaller and flatter (1 mm diameter or less), falling from stratus clouds or fog as the solid analog of drizzle. Ice crystals are small rods or platelets falling in a steady shower in cold stable air, often without visible clouds. Ice needles are irregular slivers of ice, often coated with rime. The crystals are narrow and pointed, 1 to 3 mm long and 0. 25 mm in diameter. Ice pellets are spherical or irregular, hard, clear or opaque ice particles formed from frozen rain or drizzle. Hail is formed of layers of rime and ice, typically 1 cm in diameter but sometimes reaching 10 cm in size, falling in showers during thunderstorms from extremely thick clouds. Small hailstones are sometimes called pellets, prisms, or sleet. (3) Mixed forms: In US usage sleet is partly frozen rain or the frozen coating that forms on trees, wires, and other objects by freezing rain. In British usage, sleet is a mixture of falling rain and snow. See: Rime, Below. Glaze is Formed By cold raindrops that freeze when they strike an object or the ground. Also called: Freezing Rain. (4) Subliming forms: Dew is moisture condensing in droplets from the air on solid objects on the ground, esp at night. Frost is formed by small, needle-shaped ice crystals subliming directly from the vapor phase on objects that have cooled below the dew point when the dew point is below the freezing point. Also called: White Frost; Hoarfrost. Rime is a white icy coating formed on trees and shrubs directly from vapor or fog. (5) Suspended or aerial forms: Fog is an opaque, hanging or drifting cloud or layer of small water droplets in the air near the earth's surface. Mist is a thin fog in which horizontal visibility is >1 km. Also called: Drizzle. Haze is a thin mist. See: Cloud; Water. Note: Any Precipitation, Including Clouds, Blowing snow, spray, etc. is called a hydrometeor
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