what holds hailstones in the atmosphere before they fall?

Question

hail is denser than ordinary rain drops, but something holds it up there firmly and when released, it falls with such great force that can even break the windscreen of a vehicle which is not moving.Can somebody out there say something?

Answer 1

hail is caused in very windy storms where updrafts keep pushing it upwards stronger the wind the larger tha hail

Answer 2

Hail is formed in cumulonimbus clouds. Cumulo means the way the cloud is formed with updrafts of moist air, & nimbus means that they are rain clouds. Towering cumulonibus clouds are the most beautiful ones to see from a distance but nasty when you are under them. They tower high into the atmospere like mountains and then the tops start to drift off in the upper winds to make an anvil shape. Thus these clouds are sometimes called "Anvil Clouds". These clouds become in themselves a kind of a wind & hail producing engine where the verticle updrafts rise rapidly, condense, making the water droplets, some fall as rain, but some get caught in the updrafts again & these ones are taken up to where the atmospheric temperatures are below freezing. The supercooled waterdroplets start to collide & form hail. The hail stones may or may not fall directly out of the cloud to the earth, depending on how violent the storm cloud is, these hail stones may circulate up and down several times within the storm cloud that is called cumulonimbus gaining size & weight until the cloud can no longer keep the hail stone supported and it drops to the earth. So the larger the hail formed in the cloud the more violent the storm is that produced it. If there is no freezing level within the cumulonimbus cloud there will be no hail. Some cumulonimbus clouds continue to develop until the updrafts & downdrafts are circulating so fast that they change from verticle to horizontal & then that is the early stages of the formation of a tornado.

Answer 3

Anyone who said that nothing holds hail up in the air is wrong. Hail IS frozen water, but it does not fall directly down like rain. In a strong thunderstorm, there is a large updraft and several downdrafts. As rain gets pushed up high into the air (even above the height of passenger jets), it freezes, and gets heavier. It falls a little ways and gets more water on it. Then it gets pushed up again by the strong updraft. It crosses the freezing line and gets even heavier as the new water on it freezes. It will continue to cycle until it gets too heavy to stay in the cloud any longer. Then it falls and picks up speed. The bigger and taller the thunderstorm, the bigger the hail. Some hailstones can fall at 125 mph.

Answer 4

Hey:

logic1812 is right - hail forms when water droplets fall and are repeatedly blown back up to altitudes at colder temperatures where they accumulate more water and become frozen masses.

As these masses fall and are then blown back up by updrafts (vertical currents of air), they accumulate more layers and thus grow larger. Each time a hailstone rises up, a new layer of water is collected which freezes and adds to the mass. Then the hailstone drops back down. Eventually, however, the hailstones reach a mass so large that the updrafts can no longer force them back up to hgher altitudes. Thus, the cycle ends and the hailstone falls. Evidence for this cycle occurs in the fact that dissecting a hailstone reveals distinct layers of ice like the peels of an onion.

Why do the updrafts occur? Well, it's the nature of the beast. Hail forms in the atmosphere's most intense thunderstorms which are sustained in clouds called cumulonimbus clouds. These clouds, which originate from cumulus clouds (those big, puffy white cottonball clouds) have huge, strong vertical updrafts.

As you might know, different colours absorb light differently. Typically, white colours tend to reflect infrared (as well as other forms) of light while darker colours absorb it. Our atmosphere is heated from below. Thus, if a region of the ground is darker than it's surrounding area, it will absorb infrared radiation from the sun (i.e. heat) and reradiate it into the atmosphere (you'll just have to take my word on that - it's what the earth does!). Hot air rises and so we observe vertical currents of rising air over darker, warmer patches of land. These vertical currents give rise to our cumulus clouds and so, eventually, to our cumulonimbus clouds and your hail.

Answer 5

hail when it is in clouds is in fact not hail but water vapour. this has a very low density and results in clouds being high in the sky. however because they are high up the temperature is also low. this causes the vapour to condense and form water droplets which fall as rain however in the case of hail they cool even more and form balls of ice.

the reason they fall with such great force is because they have low air resistance and as all objects regardless of mass fall at the same rate under gravity (assuming no air resistance) they can reach high speeds when they reach the ground and consequently can do a lot of damage in the case of larger ones.

Answer 6

Extreme temperature differences in elevation of the air is what causes hailstones. They are not held up they fall when they are heavier than the air blowing up.

Conditons - very low pressure which causes a severe updraft in the middle of the low pressure system. Water droplets in the air trying to fall but keep getting blown up bu this updraft. Severe cold temps in upper atmosphere.

Action - The water droplets as rain try to fall but blown up by updraft. The reach the cold temps and freeze, get heavy and fall to warmer temps and start to thaw. Blown back up again the freeze again (more, larger). Finally get too heavy and fall as hail.

Three known conditions to give dark storm clouds a "green" tinge. Hail - Dust storms - Tornado

Answer 7

Hail is created when drops of water freeze on contact on dust, ice crystals or even bugs. They are held aloft by a storm's updraft until they absorb too much frozen water, causeing them to fall at uncanny rates of speed. Hail, which can often start as condensed rain, is lifted back into the cloud by updraft, where it takes in more water and falls. The process continues (updraft lifts it, it absorbs more water) until it is too heavy, so it falls dramatically.

Answer 8

Violent updrafts in the thunderstorm cause the hail to stay up longer. The stronger the updraft the bigger the hail (the hail has more time to collect water droplets and refreeze). Once the hail stone becomes too heavy for the updraft to sustain, It simply falls to the ground.

Answer 9

Nothing. Hail starts as normal rain which freezes on the way down, gains ice layers and grows, before smashing your windscreen. So hailstones aren't hanging around up there, they're formed on the way down.

Answer 10

Hail is ordinary rain only that it freezes on the way down because of sub-zero temperatures and thus becomes ice.

Answer 11

Simplest way to put it - Vigorous updrafts in thunderstorms keep it in the cloud.

Once a hailstone is large enough to overcome the updraft, it gets caught in the downdraft and bam, it falls. Or when in the updraft it can also be thrown forward out of the updraft, out of the storm, and bam, it falls.