Colupole is a small white opaque ice particle. What does this mean?

Graupel, also known as soft hail, is a kind of small white opaque ice particles, which does not belong to the category of snow, and is a kind of atmospheric solid precipitation. It often occurs in the weather environment where the temperature is about 0 degrees Celsius or -40 degrees Celsius, and it is basically not frozen. It usually appears before or when it snows, when the ground temperature is not very low, so if it appears, it means it is going to snow soon or is snowing.

However, many people think it is hail when they meet graupel. Of course, there is a difference between the two. The graupel is loose and often falls with the snow, which is not as hard as hail. Moreover, graupel rarely appears, so it is lucky to meet it, normal to appear, and hail is translucent and opaque. You can distinguish graupel from hail according to these.

Generally speaking, the structure of graupel is more compact than snow, and it is not easy to be recorded by optical microscope. It can be said that it is a stable solid precipitate with various shapes, such as spherical, conical, hexagonal or irregular. It is produced in a severely disturbed cloud, and it is formed by a large number of snow crystals colliding with Leng Yun drops, freezing and fusing them, and often falls in an array. There are many small water droplets in the cloud, which will not freeze even below 0℃. This kind of water drop is called supercooled water drop. It is extremely unstable, as long as they shake or collide slightly, they will be frozen into ice particles immediately. When supercooled water droplets collide with graupel particles, they will freeze and drop immediately. ?

In fact, if you have a general understanding of this information, you will recognize it at a glance as soon as it appears. It is still different from snow and hail. Moreover, natural phenomena are ever-changing, and it has also participated in the movement of many clouds, and there have been avalanches. So its frequency of occurrence is not very common, but it still exists. It is enough for us ordinary people to simply distinguish. If you are an expert who specializes in atmospheric motion and particle formation, you will have a deeper understanding and judgment.