Today, when I was having lunch with friends, we had a terrific rainstorm. Just before we left the restaurant, we heard thunder.
In a number of places, as I was coming home, water covered the road.
When I arrived in my neighborhood, I was shocked to see the ground covered with white stuff. I even saw it on a few cars.
When I got out of my car to examine the phenomena, I was shocked to see that it was hail. And fairly big chunks of hail, at that.
I’m used to hail, but in the spring. I don’t recall many hailstorms this time of year.
What is hail?
Hail is precipitation that is formed when updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops upward into extremely cold areas of the atmosphere and freezes into ice. Hailstones grow by colliding with supercooled water drops.
Thunderstorms that have a strong updraft keep lifting the hailstones up to the top of the cloud so they continue to grow. The hail falls when the thunderstorm's updraft can no longer support the weight of the ice. The stronger the updraft, the larger the hailstone can grow.
How big can hailstones get?
The largest hailstone recovered in the United States fell in Aurora, Nev., on June 22, 2003, with a diameter of 7 inches and a circumference of 18.75 inches. Since its weight couldn’t be determined, the hailstone that fell on Coffeyville, Kan., in 1970 remains the largest on record at 5.7 inches and 1.67 pounds, with a circumference of 17.5 inches.
What is the difference between hail, sleet, and snow?
The process that forms the type of precipitation it defines. Hail only comes from thunderstorms because it’s the thunderstorm updraft that keeps the pieces of ice from falling.
Sleet forms from raindrops that freeze on their way down through a cloud. There ‘s no thunderstorm updraft involved in the formation of sleet or snow.
Snow is formed from water vapors in the cold clouds that have condensed into ice crystals.
Ice crystals fasten onto a dust speck. One crystal attaches to another forming a snowflake. When the snowflake is heavy enough, it falls from the cloud.
I hope a big hailstorm in November doesn’t mean that we’ll have a long, hard winter.
