Precipitation is an important link in the water cycle on Earth. They are deposited from the air or fall out of the clouds. They represent water in various states (solid or liquid).
According to the nature of the fallout, they are divided into three types - drizzling, overflowing and torrential.
In the first case, precipitation appears both at sub-zero and at positive temperatures. These can be small droplets of water, as if floating in the air, or white solid particles (up to 2 mm in diameter), the so-called "snow grains". Drop in a small area, last no more than half an hour.
Several precipitation is formed under the influence of warm fronts. They are always long (up to two days), uniform, begin and end gradually, no significant changes in the intensity of precipitation are observed.
When cold fronts prevail, showers can be observed. They start suddenly and end unexpectedly, and also change the intensity of oscillations dramatically. They can last from several minutes to 2 hours. One of them is snow showers.
General information
Snowstorms are heavy solid precipitation that falls fromcumulonimbus (dense) clouds, mainly in the cold season. It usually lasts not too long, up to 1-2 hours (usually up to half an hour). Evaporates rather quickly because it has a low density.
The question: "Snowstorm: what is it and how is it formed?" can be answered as follows. The layers of the atmosphere in which clouds form have a temperature of -5, -7 degrees, and due to insufficient heat near the ground (for heavy rain to pass), this natural phenomenon occurs.
Snowflakes it, as a rule, have a medium or small size. They gather together and fall in flakes, forming a high layer on the ground rather quickly.
There are also light showers of snow. What are these precipitations and how are they distinguished? The answer is quite simple: in this case, the intensity decreases, and the snow flakes seem to be “dry”. It lasts no more than one hour.
Snowstorm - dangerous or not?
This kind of precipitation usually results in reduced horizontal visibility. If in clear weather the visual overview is from 6 to 10 km, then during a snow shower it drops to 2-4 km, and sometimes to 100-500 meters, depending on the intensity. In such weather conditions, it is necessary to be especially careful on the roads, as the risk of traffic accidents increases.
Snowstorm is one of the dangerous meteorological events, in which the amount of precipitation reaches 20 mm for a period of up to 12 hours.
It can also be accompanied bystrong gusts of wind, which turns into a strong blizzard. In such cases, it is better to refrain from being outdoors.
Snowstorms are a phenomenon that ends as abruptly as it began. In clear weather, it is usually replaced by a bright sun.
Mixed precipitation
For the formation of snow or rain, different temperature conditions are needed. However, mixed precipitation sometimes falls on the ground. One type is rain showers. You can watch it more often in autumn or spring.
In composition, it is a mixture of water drops and snowflakes. When it hits the surface of the earth, such precipitation melts at positive temperatures, and freezes at sub-zero temperatures, forming a layer of ice (icy ice).
Another type of mixed precipitation is sleet showers. It is usually isolated as a separate weather phenomenon. It falls at positive air temperatures and is a large flake of snow that melts before it touches the ground.
Is freezing rain and heavy snow the same thing or not?
These terms, like the weather phenomena themselves, are very different, but sometimes they are still confused. Most often this is due to the synonyms of the words "rain" from the first name and the word "rain" from the second. To remember that they are not the same, you need to understand what constitutes freezing rain.
It is classified as a complex type of precipitation, and it occurs at negative temperatures, up to -15 degrees. It usually lasts quitefor a long time without changing its intensity. Freezing rain is solid, transparent white pieces of ice, inside of which there is water in a liquid state.
When hit on the ground, it causes ice in the same way as wet snow showers. Photos of these natural phenomena can be easily found in this article.
