What Causes Hail and what is the process?
Hail is precipitation that is formed when updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops upward into extremely cold areas of the atmosphere. Hail can damage aircraft, homes and cars, and can be deadly to livestock and people. One of the people killed during the March 28, 2000 tornado in Fort Worth was killed when struck by grapefruit-size hail. Cross-section of a supercell thunderstormWhile Florida has the most thunderstorms, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming usually have the most hail storms. Why? The freezing level in the Florida thunderstorms is so high, the hail often melts before reaching the ground. Hailstones grow by collision with supercooled water drops. (Supercooled drops are liquid drops surrounded by air that is below freezing which is a common occurrence in thunderstorms.) There are two methods by which the hailstone grows, wet growth and dry growth, and which produce the “layered look” of hail. In wet growth, the hailstone nucleus (a tiny piece of ice) is in a region where the
