2006-08-24 00:47:23 · 5 answers · asked by ABY 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Weather
It varies with location, season and other geographic factors such as latitude and elevation. As for hailstorm, it's many-layered of snow balls. If it's large, it can cause damage. These links has more information on snowfall and hailstorm.
2006-08-24 00:57:54 · answer #1 · answered by Kristen H 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Snowfall occurs when the weather is codler. As the air is always below freezing the water vapors freeze into small little particles of ice which blow together and freeze into the design of a snowflake. That is what causes a snowflake to be so light and fluffy. A hailstorm occurs when you have a cold and warm weather front and the run into each other. The upper atmosphere is the right condition for raindrops to form and as the fall through the atmosphere toward earth they get caught in the violently swirling vortex caused by the cold air from the cold front and the warm air from the warm front colliding. As this happens the raindrop gets pushed back up further rather then going down. While going up the raindrop freezes. The more violent the storm the more times that this happens. Eventually the frozen raindrop becomes to big to stay in the swirling vortex and falls through to earth. That is why there is hail before very violent storms and the bigger the hail the worse the storm. That is the difference in how snowfalls and hailstorms form.
2006-08-24 07:59:47 · answer #2 · answered by miloscrack 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Snow comes from nimbostratus clouds (or sometimes stratocumulus or stratus clouds), while hail comes from cumulonimbus clouds.
In cumulonimbus clouds, the vertical winds can be very powerful. This means that a small water droplet can move upwards, inside the cloud, to colder levels, until it freezes, only to move down again with the winds, being warmed up and half-way melting. The water droplet / ice crystal keeps moving up and down with the vertical winds inside the cloud, freezing and half-way melting several times, growing bigger all the time, until it's finally heavy enough to fall to the ground in the form of hail.
(If you would cut a hail in halves, you would see that it has rings just like a cut-down tree, from the repeated melting and freezing.)
Nimbostratus clouds don't have very strong vertical winds, which means that the ice crystals in the clouds can grow bigger "in peace" until they are heavy enough to fall to the ground as snow.
2006-08-24 08:55:09 · answer #3 · answered by Barret 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
snowfall occurs in the winter. Hail can only occur in the summer with violent thunderstorms.
2006-08-24 15:59:24 · answer #4 · answered by Steve R 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I agree with dwana49.
2006-08-24 13:47:12 · answer #5 · answered by telcontar328 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋