Weather Tidbits: Graupel

This edition of Weather Tidbits will be discussing graupel. Graupel is a type of precipitation that can form during the colder months of the year. During the formation of graupel, the precipitation first starts off as a snowflake. The snowflake then falls through a layer of super-cooled water droplets, which are water drops with a temperature below 32 degrees. The droplets freeze, or rime, onto the snowflake. The end result is tiny, white pellets that resemble small hail. But unlike hail, graupel is soft and crushable. Hail is formed by intense updrafts in a thunderstorm, suspending rain droplets into a layer of below-freezing temperatures within a thunderstorm cloud which forms the ice of a hailstone. This process is different from how graupel forms.