🌧️ RAIN, SLEET, SNOW AND HAIL: TYPES OF PRECIPITATION
PAGE 1 OF 5, WATER FALLING FROM THE SKY
PRECIPITATION
ANY WATER OR ICE THAT FALLS FROM CLOUDS
Precipitation is any water or ice that falls from a cloud to the ground. It includes rain, sleet, snow, and hail. You already met the water cycle in earlier topics: water evaporates, rises, cools, and forms clouds. Inside those clouds, tiny bits of dust and salt give water something to freeze onto. That is where ice crystals begin. When crystals grow heavy enough, gravity pulls them downward. What you feel on your head depends on the temperature of the air below the cloud. Same start in the sky, different landing on Earth.
🔑 BIG IDEA
Almost all precipitation begins as ice crystals or frozen droplets high in a cloud, even when it reaches you as liquid rain.
FALL!
IN CLOUDS
☁️ Cloud droplets are tiny, but they bump together and stick until they are big enough to fall.
🧊 High, cold cloud tops are where ice crystals first form, even on warm summer days below.
🧊 High, cold cloud tops are where ice crystals first form, even on warm summer days below.
CYCLE LINK
🌊 Rain that soaks into soil may later evaporate and become cloud water again.
🏔 Snow that piles on mountains can melt in spring and feed rivers for months.
🏔 Snow that piles on mountains can melt in spring and feed rivers for months.