What is the difference between freezing rain and hail

The primary difference between frozen precipitation is how the different types grow and the maximum sizes of the individual particles. Snow forms mainly when water vapor turns to ice without going through the liquid stage. This process is called deposition. Snow can form in the gentle updrafts of stratus clouds or at high altitudes in very cold regions of a thunderstorm.

Snowflakes that most of us are used to seeing are not individual snow crystals, but are actually aggregates, or collections, of snow crystals that stick or otherwise attach to each other. Aggregates can grow to very large sizes compared to individual snow crystals. If the riming is particularly intense, the rimed snow crystal can grow to an appreciable size, but remain less than 0. Graupel is also called snow pellets or soft hail, as the graupel particles are particularly fragile and generally disintegrate when handled.

If snowflakes fall through the atmosphere without passing through layers of air that are warmer than the freezing mark, the flakes continue falling to the ground without melting. Snow is actually similar to sleet in the way it forms, but sleet is more solid and makes noise when it lands. Very large hail stones. If you hear icy pellets hitting your car during a winter storm, don't tell your friends it's hailing outside. That's because hail is extremely rare in the winter time, the National Weather Service says.

Hail is generally associated with thunderstorms, and almost always forms during warmer months. Some of the pellets might look like sleet, but their formation process is different. Also, hail pellets are usually much larger than sleet pellets. During strong thunderstorms, small ice crystals get blown upward into the colder part of the atmosphere by updrafts, The Weather Channel explains.

As the ice crystals collide with very cold water droplets, they get bigger. Once they get too large and heavy, the hail pellets fall to the ground. By the way, the largest hail stone ever reported in New Jersey was 3 inches in diameter, according to the National Weather Service. The giant hail stone, about the size of a baseball, fell on June 23, in Cherry Hill. Graupel, another type of frozen precipitation, is pictured on the right. National Weather Service Missoula, Montana.

If you're already confused, add some graupel to the mix. This unusual type of frozen precipitation looks a bit like snow, a bit like sleet and a bit like hail.

That's why it is sometimes called "snow pellets" or "soft hail. Graupel forms when snowflakes are coated by super-cooled water droplets from updrafts — upward currents of air — in the atmosphere. When it lands on the ground, graupel looks sort of like Styrofoam balls.

Graupel is more common in mountainous regions of the United States, but it occasionally falls in the Garden State. The hailstones grow bigger in the clouds as ice crystals and cloud droplets freeze onto them.

They're held suspended in the clouds by strong winds that push up into the storm. Finally, once the hailstones grow too heavy, gravity causes them to fall to the Earth. Hail is typically small, often the size of a penny, but can grow to monstrous sizes. The heaviest hailstone ever recorded was 2. Facebook Twitter Email. Sleet vs. What's the difference? Show Caption. Hide Caption. Winter Storm Stella wreaking havoc for travelers.