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    Weather words

    What is graupel?

    Graupel: snow that has tried too hard.

    Soft, white pellets of ice, like tiny polystyrene balls, that bounce when they land.

    Get roasted by your own forecastFree, no account, and you pick how rude I get.

    “Is that snow? No, it’s graupel. It’s bouncing.”

    More about graupel

    Graupel forms when supercooled water droplets freeze onto a falling snowflake until it becomes a soft, crumbly ball. It is softer than hail and different from sleet, which is refrozen rain.

    Where the word comes from

    From German, where Graupel means pearl barley.

    What I think of graupel

    • Graupel: snow that has tried too hard.
    • Graupel is weather that sounds made up, and is not.
    • If snow and polystyrene had a child, it would be graupel.

    Words people compare it with

    • Sleet: Wet, icy precipitation. What it means depends on where you are.
    • Flurries: Light snow that falls briefly and does not build up much, if at all.
    • Rime: White ice that coats surfaces when freezing fog or cloud droplets hit them.
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