Topic: Ice pellets or hail?

[tweatherman]

I called in pea size hail to the NWS office and the particular met. on duty told me that it was ice pellets not hail. Suface temp. 49 and thunder/lightining in vicinity. Can anyone chime in and let me know what the difference is. I did some google searching and said that ice pellets was another name for sleet.

Tim

[Mark / Ohio]

I always have thought of ice pellets and sleet occurring with ground temps near freezing and hail associated with thunderstorms and higher temps.

[tweatherman]

Here is a different met. at the same office with the AFD. I can't wait until this specific met. retires. Everyone at the office is saying soon.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GAYLORD MI
125 PM EDT SUN OCT 26 2008
SHORT TERM.../ISSUED AT 116 PM/...THIS AFTERNOON
SFC FRONT PASSING THROUGH THE REGION THIS MORNING AND AFTERNOON.
DAYTIME HEATING AND -30C AIR ALOFT HAVE COMBINED WITH THE FRONT
AND AN EASTWARD ADVANCING EMBEDDED SHORTWAVE TO SPARK OFF
NUMEROUS SHOWERS AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS. THE STRONGER CELLS
HAVE EASILY BEEN PRODUCING SMALL HAIL WITH FREEZING LEVELS DOWN
AROUND 4.5-5KFT.

Tim

[ironton]

I called in the hail for my location at that time too (same NWS office).  He was certainly not interested and seemed to explain how this hail was different.  I saw no report posted on the local NWS site. 
-ed

[Carson Weather]

We get graupel over here in Nevada.

Here is a picture with a pretty good description.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/weather/2008/03/its_hail_its_snow_no_its_both.html

I don't see it mentioned, but I want to say that graupel usuallt happens when temps are close to freezing

Graupel (also called snow pellets) refers to precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water condense on a snowflake, forming a 2–5 mm ball of rime; the snowflake acts as a nucleus of condensation in this process. The term is derived from German Graupel meaning the same. Graupel does not include other frozen precipitation such as snow, hail, ice pellets or diamond dust. The METAR code for graupel is GS.[1][2]

[tweatherman]

Hail in the NWS glossary is anything bigger than 5mm which is what I called in was.

Tim

[ironton]

Thanks for that info on graupel!  I've seen that but never knew what it was called.  I just called it snow pellets. 
What I had here today was not like that.

-ed

[tweatherman]

Update,
I talked to a guy at work today that lives about 18 miles to the east of me and said that he had 1/2" dia. hail about a half an hour after I had my pea size hail. Being 1/2'" does this make this a ice pellets? Bad part on the met. for not taking spotters seriously.

Tim

[George Richardson]

FWIW
I checked my Skywarn Spotter Training literature and got conflicting information. The Pocket Spotter Guide says to report "Hailstones of any size" and grades them down to 1/4" dia. or "Pea size".
However, the "Reporting Criteria" specifically lists: "Hail with a diameter greater than or equal to 1/2inch" listed in the table as "dime size". So, although a NWS employee should never blow you off, depending on which of those two definitions he ascribed to, he was probably was blowing you off.

George

[kray1000]

Factors that could decide whether this was hail or sleet would be whether or not there were updrafts associated with this storm, and whether the "stones" had a slightly irregular shape (hail) or a more uniform appearance (sleet).

I experienced a few minutes of thundersleet a couple/few years ago just as a cold front passed, before the precipitation changed to snow, but temperatures were falling through the 30's as this occurred.

With temperatures too warm for sleet even with the low freezing levels, I agree that what Tim observed was probably hail.  Hail is more common with temperatures in the 50's and 60's than people realize because of the cold air aloft.