Participating in Precipitation

Confession. I have a couple odd pet peeves.

Justification. Everyone else has weird ones too.

Explanation. It's about precipitation. You know, the stuff that falls from the sky? Now, it's not that I get irked every time it rains in December or snow flies in May. It's when people are calling that which falls from the sky by the wrong name.

Sleet. Hail. Snow. Freezing rain. Rain.

I'll begin with the most common of the time of year. This one isn't most commonly misused, but I might as well cover my bases.

Rain: Simply put, rain is water that falls from the sky. It's liquid precipitation.

Freezing Rain: This is rain that has the unique quality of freezing almost as soon as it hits the ground or any other surface (cars, trees, houses, wires, etc). This happens when it rains below freezing. The temperature of the rain drops as it falls through the air and it freezes quickly after impact.

Sleet: Now, this is where it gets fun. Technically, the name for this precipitation is graupel, but our vernacular calls for it to be called sleet. This stuff usually gets mixed up with hail or snow in the daily conversations... and it bothers me. This is the stuff that sits as future rain droplets in the clouds until a nice cold pocket of air freezes it into little balls. These are the white ones that have the same colors as snow. However, they are in ball form. Not flake form. This form of precipitation can fall both at times when the temperature is appropriate for snowfall and when it is not. This form of precipitation is not to be confused with hail or with snow. They aren't ice chunks. They aren't flakes. It's sleet. However, if you want to be more awesome and show off your vocabulary, you may call it graupel.

Hail: This is a form of precipitation that occurs when there is a thunderstorm or some similar meteorological activity. These are the chunks of ice that fall from the sky that... look like ice. The size ranges from .5 cm to 15 cm. This stuff kind of hurts when you're hit with it.

Snow: This is the crystalline precipitation that is frozen and falls in the form of flakes. It likes to accumulate and form snow drifts. Especially in the state of Michigan.