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What Conditions Are Necessary for Precipitation to Occur?

The conditions necessary for precipitation to occur are important to know because of what happens when precipitation does occur. When conditions are right, snow could form and blanket an entire city or rain could flood it out. The right conditions could cause rain to freeze and cover streets. Hail could form and cause massive damage to property such as cars and homes. Sleet, another type of precipitation, can occur when conditions are right for it.

Melting Ice Crystals
- Water droplets in the clouds become heavier than what the clouds can hold. When this happens, the droplets fall to the earth as rain. Rain can also form due to ice crystals. When ice crystals add up enough to make snowflakes, then snow begins to fall. However, if the snow passes through warmer air before hitting the ground, by the time it makes landfall, it will be rain instead of snow. The snowflakes literally melt back into raindrops on the way down.
Frozen Ice Pellets
- Major thunderstorms provide the conditions necessary for hail to occur. Water creates ice pellets when it freezes onto descending snowflakes. The more the water adds up, the larger the ice pellet becomes. Ice pellets can then get taken back up into the storm clouds, where more ice accumulates. Strong updrafts can cause this cycle to be repeated numerous times, leading to larger hailstones. When the hailstone's weight becomes too much for the updraft to support, then the hailstones drop to the ground. Hailstones can be the size of baseballs and can damage plants, animals, property and people.
Frozen Raindrops
- Freezing rain will transform into sleet, which is defined as frozen raindrops that fall to the ground and bounce on contact. Bands of frozen rain will often have sleet located on the band's northern side, which is also its coldest. Because the conditions for sleet are tricky, meteorologists have a harder time forecasting sleet than some other types of precipitation. Sleet can cause driving concerns, because it can lead to slick roadways.
Sleet to Snow
- As freezing rain changes to sleet, a greater distance from the warm front provides conditions capable of changing sleet into snow. Snow is basically ice crystals that accumulate as they fall to the earth's surface. Snow is a type of precipitation that's never allowed to pass through warm air on its journey downward. Because of this, snow hits the ground completely in tact. Major snowstorms can occur, known as blizzards, and can cause problems ranging from power outages to blocked roadways.

Nature