Workin’ on my weather knowledge…
So when it’s raining those little ice pellets too small to properly be called hail (which is, itself, properly a summer thing, no?), you call it sleet, yes?
Ugh.
That would be sleet. Snow is frozen all the way down, sleet melts as it falls through a shallow layer of warmer air and then refreezes in cooler air under the warm layer before it hits the ground, and freezing rain starts out frozen, melts as it falls through a thicker layer of warm air near the ground and only freezes on contact with freezing surfaces. That’s why it’s the most dangerous, you get instant ice on the roads and weights hanging from unsuspecting tree limbs and power lines during a freezing rain.
I had no idea either until I moved out here, having seen only hail and snow in CA.
BTW you technically only get hail in a thunderstorm, so it’s usually a summer thing.
Posted by caltechgirl on 01/08 at 04:53 PMWe have actually gotten sleet here in Monterey. Not very often, of course. It’s usually when it’s snowing in Carmel Valley if I recall.
Posted by Ith on 01/08 at 05:19 PMHere in the middle of the country we get it all. In the spring, summer, and fall it is hail. In the winter it can be called sleet, freezing rain or just a plain old ice storm. Very rarely do we get the actual white stuff - snow. We got every one of the frozen stuff except the snow this past Wednesday. Just lovely. I can hardly wait for June. Sigh.
Posted by on 01/09 at 03:27 PMIt’s funny you should mention sleet. A couple of days ago back here in Cali, there was one of those “reporter out in the elements” bits that gets played every time it rains/snows here.
The poor guy was up in Blue Canyon (about halfway btwn Sac and Reno), and could barely look at the camera because someone had the brilliant idea of facing him directly into the sleet. All just to show a big pile of snow accumulation we could assume was there anyway.
I guess every field reporter needs those “man vs. the elements” pieces to put in his/her resume.
Posted by Ben on 01/10 at 06:56 AM
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