Sleet for Dummies

Sleet is a word that describes a type of precipitation, which means it refers to the water that falls from the sky in various forms. Now, let me ask you a question, have you ever seen rain before? Of course, you have! Rain is when water falls from the clouds in the form of drops, right? Well, sleet is a bit different from rain. It's like a mix between rain and snow. Imagine this: when it's snowing outside, the water vapor in the air freezes and forms tiny ice particles called snowflakes. But sometimes, when those frozen snowflakes are on their way down to the ground, they pass through a layer of warmer air on the way down. And when they encounter that warmer air, they partially melt and become these small ice pellets. These pellets of ice are what we call sleet.

Now, let's try to understand sleet with another analogy. Have you seen when you pour cold water on a hot pan? What happens? The water instantly starts to turn into tiny droplets, right? Well, when sleet is formed, it's like those tiny droplets of water freezing into tiny ice pellets as they fall through the colder air. So, just like the raindrops that fall from the sky, sleet is like those frozen droplets that come down in the form of small ice pellets instead of liquid droplets.

Keep in mind that sleet is different from freezing rain, which is another type of precipitation. Freezing rain occurs when the raindrops freeze into a coating of ice as soon as they come into contact with a surface that is at or below freezing temperature. But with sleet, the freezing happens before the pellets reach the ground, in the air itself. So, sleet is basically a mixture of frozen and unfrozen water droplets that fall from the sky, while freezing rain is liquid raindrops that freeze upon contact with a cold surface.