Precipitation

What is precipitation? Clouds hold millions of tiny water droplets. Over time, a cloud can hold more and more tiny droplets of water and pieces of ice. Wind and temperature make the droplets and pieces bump into each other. They then group together; they get bigger and heavier until they are too heavy to stay in the cloud. They fall to the ground as something called precipitation. Precipitation can include rain, snow, hail or sleet. Precipitation can form into different types. This is because the differences in temperatures. If the air between the cloud and the ground is warm, the precipitation will fall as rain. If the rain freezes between the cloud and the ground, it becomes sleet. If the air is in the cloud and it blows very cold, the precipitation will fall as snow. Hail forms when ice crystals get blown upward inside of a cloud over and over. The ice will get bigger and bigger each time until it finally falls from the sky. Sleet is smaller than hail. Sleet falls in cold weather. Precipitation comes from storms. Thunderstorms are the most common type storm. They are caused when warm, wet air hits cold, dry air. The warm, wet air rises fast to form huge clouds.