Ice Pellets
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Current revision
Ice Pellets is precipitation in the form of transparent or translucent pellets of ice, which are round or irregular in shape. They have a diameter of 0.2 inches (5 mm) or less.
They are classified into two types: hard grains of ice consisting of frozen rain drops or largely melted and refrozen snowflakes; pellets of snow encased in a thin layer of ice which have formed from the freezing of droplets intercepted by pellets or water resulting from the partial melting of pellets.
Ice pellets form when a layer of above-freezing air is located between 1500 meters (approximately 5,000 feet) and 3000 meters (approximately 10,000 feet) above the ground, with sub-freezing air both above and below it.
This causes the partial or complete melting of any snowflakes falling through the warm layer. As they fall back into the sub-freezing layer closer to the surface, they re-freeze into ice pellets. However, if the sub-freezing layer beneath the warm layer is too small, the precipitation will not have time to re-freeze, and freezing rain will be the result at the surface.
[edit] Also see
[edit] Reference
- Wikipedia Ice pellets [1]
Return to Snow and Weather Glossary, Working with Snow, Freestyle Skiing
