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What causes rain to become freezing rain/ hail instead of snow?

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What causes rain to become freezing rain/ hail instead of snow?

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Freezing rain is liquid precip which hits a surface that is at or below 0 degrees C (32 degrees F). The liquid touches the colder surface and thus “freezes the rain” to become ice. Most precip falls straight down to the ground due to gravity. In a larger storm cloud, such as a cumulonimbus, there might be updrafts or currents of air that are rising upward, perpendicular to the ground. Suspended in a cloud are supercooled water droplets which freeze together. One of these droplets gets big enough that gravity pulls it down. It then hits an updraft which is strong enough to push it back higher into the air. As it rises, it hits more supercooled water droplets, causing the precip to grow in size. Gravity starts to win again, pulling it back down hitting more droplets adding to the size. Another stronger updraft comes to push it back up, gravity down, updraft up, etc. The longer it stays suspended in air, the larger the hail grows. Eventually, gravity wins and causes softball size hail whi

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