With the arrival of Winter, The country has felt increasingly cooler temperatures and the National Weather Service is forecasting one for this Monday Cold weather in the center of the country; as well as the fall of sleet for the Puebla Highlands, the State of Mexico and Mexico City.
In addition, due to the low temperatures in the Nevado de Toluca volcano, the decline is beginning snowwhile there was hail in other parts of the capital last Sunday afternoon.
And as the surrounding area will continue to be very cold this Monday, some of these weather conditions could continue. For this reason we explain how you can distinguish between snow, sleet and sleet. Unhurt If these phenomena occur in your community.
How is hail formed?
Before explaining the difference between the three terms, it is very important that you know how Training of each of them and how they fall to earth, because here are the keys.
That Unhurtas you’ve surely seen in a storm, are small balls of ice that fall from the sky during very heavy rains and usually form in clouds called cumulonimbus clouds, according to the Uruguayan Institute of Meteorology.
Hail doesn’t always arrive unscathed, as the air warms as it falls and the pellets melt along the way: Photo: Unsplash
The foregoing due to the fact that the temperature in these “storm cloudsThey are usually very cold, one of the necessary conditions for hail to form, explains Muy Interesante magazine.
Well, for the ice balls to form, it also requires updrafts that penetrate the clouds as they carry them raindrops from bottom to top where the temperature is very cold.
This is extremely important because when these water droplets come into contact with the ice crystals, they freeze and form the ice crystals Unhurt. He then falls back to the cloud floor and is lifted up again by a current.
It takes 10 trillion raindrops for hail to form in a cloud: Photo: Meteorologiaenred
And the process repeats itself when it comes into contact with more ice crystalsforms a layer on top of the ball. This continues until the airflow weakens or the hail becomes too strong to stay in the cloud.
This is where hail begins to fall during storms, although the Uruguayan Institute of Meteorology explains that it doesn’t always arrive unscathed because the air gets warmer as it falls, which is why the small balls They don’t reach the surface because they melt on the way.
This is how snow is made
On the other hand, the formation of snow It’s very different, because it’s a kind of rain, since snow is water but not liquid, since it’s made up of micro-frozen drops that grow in a cloud.
To understand its formation, you need to remember that due to the heat of the sun, the water of the oceans and sea evaporates and rises, forming clouds as water vapor accumulates and travels to one place very cold.
Snowflakes are made up of tens, hundreds, thousands and millions of snow crystals: Photo: Unsplash
This is below 0 degrees, it’s here where the snow crystals; However, if too many accumulate, the clouds discharge them and throw them to earth. These crystals clump together and we see them fall off as “flakes”.
The above because a single flake of snow According to Bogotá’s Minister of Sports and Recreation, it contains tens, hundreds, thousands and millions of snow crystals.
And what is mud?
Sleet is a type of precipitation into which water is mixed rainfall and snow at the same time, that is, part of the drops is frozen, so it is possible to find small ice crystals.
But for it to happen sleet There must be very precise weather conditions as the air must be warm enough for the snow to melt but not melt completely, according to the meteorology on the web portal.
Certain weather conditions are required for sleet to form: Photo: Unsplash
While it is possible to find ice crystals this way, the structures they form are not as complex as those of snowflakes, and some snow-like grains can even be found. Unhurt.
What is the difference between snow, sleet and hail?
This is how, as you may have noticed, the hailstones are ice balls which can be between 1 and 4 centimeters in size and are formed in cumulonimbus clouds during storms.
As the snow in the clouds is formed by the accumulation of water vapor in a very cold place, where temperatures can go as low as minus zero, crystals can form and coalesce flakes.
Snowflakes have different shapes depending on the air temperature and the amount of vapor it contains: Photo: Unsplash
When they fall from the clouds, the air temperature should be below 2 degrees so that the flakes arrive and emerge intact snowfallthat form snow caps.
However, when the temperature is 2 degrees, the snow is not carried to the surface intact as it melts, resulting in sleet, where raindrops mix with snow crystals. A mix between Rain and snow.