Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:08:09 GMT, Don White
wrote:


She says hail only happens in the spring/summer fall.


My recollection is that it takes strong upward convection to form
hail, and that only happens in summer thunderstorms. Apparently as
the moisture droplets are convected upward they pass through zones of
freezing temperatures where they grow in size until they eventually
get heavy enough to fall.


that sounds right...here's how she put it.................
"Hail is very unlikely during our colder months. Hail forms when
strong currents of rising air, known as updrafts, carry water droplets
high enough in a thunderstorm for the water droplets to freeze.
While hailstones are ice, hail is mostly a summer phenomena because
the strong thunderstorms needed to produce hail are much more commom
during the warmer weather. The vast majority of hail occurs May through
August.
Ice that falls during the winter is almost always ice pellets or snow
grains, raindrops that freeze on the way down. The original snowflakes
are transformed into solid pellets of ice, normally called ice pellets
in Canada or sleet in the U.S."