It's raining. How is the snowy weather formed?

Water is the foundation of all kinds of life on the earth, and its changes and movements have created our world today. On the earth, water is constantly circulating. The water in the ocean and on the ground is heated and evaporated into the sky. The water vapor moves to other places with the wind. When they encounter cold air, they form precipitation and return to the earth's surface. There are two kinds of precipitation: one is liquid precipitation, which is rain; The other is solid precipitation, which is snow or hail.

The precipitation that falls on the earth's surface in the form of solid in the atmosphere is called atmospheric solid precipitation. Snow is one of the most extensive, universal and main forms of atmospheric solid precipitation. There are many kinds of atmospheric solid precipitation, including beautiful snowflakes, hail that can cause great harm, and snow graupel and ice particles that we don't often see.

Due to the difference of meteorological conditions and growth environment in the sky, all kinds of atmospheric solid precipitation are caused. The names of these atmospheric solid precipitation vary from place to place, from person to person, varied and extremely inconsistent. For convenience, the International Ice and Snow Committee under the International Hydrological Association held a special international conference in 1949 on the basis of consulting experts from various countries, at which the proposal of "Concise Classification of Atmospheric Solid Precipitation" was adopted. This concise classification divides atmospheric solid precipitation into ten types: snowflake, star snowflake, columnar snowflake, needle snowflake, multi-branch snowflake, axial snowflake, irregular snowflake, graupel, ice particle and hail. The first seven kinds are collectively called snow.

Why can't the last three be called snow? It turns out that there are two processes for gaseous water vapor to become solid water. One is that water vapor first becomes water, and then water condenses into ice crystals. Another is that water vapor directly becomes ice crystals without water. This process is called water condensation. Therefore, snow is solid precipitation formed by condensation of water vapor in the sky. Ten forms of atmospheric solid precipitation: snowflake, star snowflake, columnar snowflake, needle snowflake, multi-branch snowflake, axial snowflake, irregular snowflake, graupel, ice particle and hail.

As we all know, clouds are composed of many small water droplets and small ice crystals, and raindrops and snowflakes are composed of these small water droplets and small ice crystals. So, how is snow formed?

In the water cloud, all water droplets are small water droplets. They grow into raindrops mainly through continuous condensation and collision.

Ice cloud is made up of tiny ice crystals. When these small ice crystals collide with each other, the surface of the ice crystals will heat up and melt, and they will stick together and freeze again. Repeat this for many times, and ice crystals will increase. In addition, there is water vapor in the cloud, so ice crystals can continue to grow through condensation. However, where the ice cloud is generally high but not thick, and there is not much water vapor, the condensation growth is slow, and there are not many opportunities to collide with each other, so it cannot grow to a great extent to form precipitation. Even if it causes precipitation, it often evaporates in the process of falling and rarely falls to the ground.

The most favorable cloud droplet growth is the mixed cloud. The mixed cloud consists of small ice crystals and supercooled water droplets. When a mass of air is saturated with ice crystals, it is unsaturated with water droplets. At this time, the water vapor in the cloud condenses on the surface of ice crystals, while the supercooled water droplets are evaporating, which produces the phenomenon that ice crystals "adsorb" water vapor from supercooled water droplets. In this case, ice crystals will grow rapidly. Besides, supercooled water is very unstable. If you touch it, it will freeze. Therefore, when supercooled water droplets collide with ice crystals in mixed clouds, they will freeze and adhere to the surface of ice crystals, making them grow rapidly. When small ice crystals grow up, they overcome the resistance and buoyancy of air and fall to the ground. This is snow.

In early spring and late autumn, the air near the ground is above 0℃, but this layer of air is not thick and the temperature is not very high, which will make the snow fall to the ground and melt completely. This is the so-called "wet snow", or "both rain and snow". This phenomenon is called "sleet" in meteorology