A Brothers Reply 1
Reply to my sister whining about the weather...
Well, the bad news is that the amount of sleet you get versus the amount of freezing rain is dependant on how much dust is in the air. Dust acts as a "condensation particle", because sleet/hail must have some little bit of impurity at the center of it. The tiny little particle collects tiny little moisture droplets, and the moisture freezes around the particle, and as it gets wafted around in the upper atmosphere, it collects more and more moisture (and thus more and more ice) until it is too heavy to be buoyed up by the rising air currents. Then it falls (collecting more ice as it falls) until it comes crashing through your windshield (or pelting your roof, in the case of mere sleet)(hail is usually a summer occurrence, because you get much stronger updrafts with summer's much hotter air, which allows the ice lumps to grow much larger). Freezing rain does the exact same thing, but it lacks that one critical condensation particle to get the freezing lump of ice started. Freezing rain is much colder than 32 degrees, but because it is very pure water (no contaminants), then it won't freeze until it hits something (like your windshield)(or the road, or power lines). This is why sleet usually comes before freezing rain. All the dust/contaminants in the air are used up in the formation of sleet/hail (which is actually the same thing, except that someone decided to call large sleet hail), and when there are no more condensation particles to adhere to, the rest of the moisture falls as freezing rain. That's why those big fat raindrops in spring are so damned cold on your back.
Thunder and lightning aren't all that uncommon in winter. Its because there is a layer of cold air and a layer of warm(er) air, and the two are moving in different directions. The friction between the two layers strips some electrons off of some atoms, and the lightning is just the mechanism that redistributes those electrons to balance the resultant charge-state (sort of like the plastic comb/rubber balloon trick)(or you could use a cat). It has nothing to do with summer or winter, as long as there is enough of a temperature/pressure difference to cause the layers to be stratified.
OK, have you had enough meteorology for one day? I hope your electricity stays on. Do you have a way to heat the house if you lose power?
Well, the bad news is that the amount of sleet you get versus the amount of freezing rain is dependant on how much dust is in the air. Dust acts as a "condensation particle", because sleet/hail must have some little bit of impurity at the center of it. The tiny little particle collects tiny little moisture droplets, and the moisture freezes around the particle, and as it gets wafted around in the upper atmosphere, it collects more and more moisture (and thus more and more ice) until it is too heavy to be buoyed up by the rising air currents. Then it falls (collecting more ice as it falls) until it comes crashing through your windshield (or pelting your roof, in the case of mere sleet)(hail is usually a summer occurrence, because you get much stronger updrafts with summer's much hotter air, which allows the ice lumps to grow much larger). Freezing rain does the exact same thing, but it lacks that one critical condensation particle to get the freezing lump of ice started. Freezing rain is much colder than 32 degrees, but because it is very pure water (no contaminants), then it won't freeze until it hits something (like your windshield)(or the road, or power lines). This is why sleet usually comes before freezing rain. All the dust/contaminants in the air are used up in the formation of sleet/hail (which is actually the same thing, except that someone decided to call large sleet hail), and when there are no more condensation particles to adhere to, the rest of the moisture falls as freezing rain. That's why those big fat raindrops in spring are so damned cold on your back.
Thunder and lightning aren't all that uncommon in winter. Its because there is a layer of cold air and a layer of warm(er) air, and the two are moving in different directions. The friction between the two layers strips some electrons off of some atoms, and the lightning is just the mechanism that redistributes those electrons to balance the resultant charge-state (sort of like the plastic comb/rubber balloon trick)(or you could use a cat). It has nothing to do with summer or winter, as long as there is enough of a temperature/pressure difference to cause the layers to be stratified.
OK, have you had enough meteorology for one day? I hope your electricity stays on. Do you have a way to heat the house if you lose power?
posted by Christopher Willis at 2:08 PM
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