Paragraph on “Hail and Snow” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

Hail and Snow

Condensation of water vapour in the atmosphere results in the formation of drops of water which ran to the Earth in the form of rain. There are occasions when the weather is so cold that these drops of water freeze to form ice crystals. These ice crystals collect together to form snow flakes which fall to the ground in the form of snow. Often strong winds toss the snowflakes around in the sky. This causes them to accumulate more ice and we see small frozen pieces of ice falling with the rain, these are called Hailstones. Snow is of two types i.e. ‘Wet snow’ and ‘Dry snow’. Wet snow is generally formed in conditions where the air is warm and moist and the crystals get bonded together, on the other hand Dry snow is formed in conditions where the air is extremely cold and dry. Dry snow is made up of crystals which are small and float down individually. Contrary to ice, hail is formed in stages and for this it is essential that the temperature of the top layer of the cloud is at freezing level and the prevailing air currents are strong enough to toss the crystals around in the clouds so that they grow in size by accumulating other crystals. As the crystals move downwards in the cloud, the air currents carry them upwards once again where another layer of ice is added to the crystals and this process continues till the crystals are so big and heavy that they fall to the Earth in the shape of hailstones. There are occasions when snow flakes melt while falling to the Earth, this produces sleet.