23. What is it called when pellets of ice, sometimes as large as baseballs, fall from the sky?
From Quiz Weather for Kids
Answer:
Hail
Hail is made inside thunderclouds-not all thunderclouds, though. Two things are needed for hail to form: Strong updrafts inside the cloud (an updraft is when wind blows upwards, away from the earth) and freezing temperatures in the upper part of the cloud.
Hail starts out as rain that gets caught in the updrafts and blown into the freezing part of the cloud, freezes into ice, begins to fall to earth, gets wet again, gets caught again in the updraft, and goes back to the freezing part of the cloud. This time a new thin layer of rain freezes onto the ice. Each time the ice gets caught in the updraft and returns to the frozen part of the cloud, a little more water freezes onto it and it gets bigger and heavier. Eventually the ice-now called a hailstone-gets too heavy for the updraft to blow it back into the top of the cloud, and it falls to earth. Hailstones can be very dangerous if they are large, and they can damage cars, houses and heads even if they are just a couple of inches in diameter.