Ice pellets

Ice pellets are small, hard balls of ice formed when raindrops or partially melted snow refreeze before reaching the ground. They are distinct from soft, opaque snow pellets and hail.

Sleet: Sleet is frozen precipitation that falls as small ice particles, especially ice pellets in North American usage. In North America, sleet is the common name for these pellets.
Graupel: Graupel is a soft, opaque ice particle formed when supercooled cloud droplets freeze onto a snow crystal. Graupel grows by collecting cloud droplets, not by refreezing melted precipitation.
Winter storm: A winter storm is a weather event involving snow, ice, or other hazardous cold-season precipitation. Ice pellets often occur within mixed-precipitation winter storms.
Freezing rain and sleet storm of December 2013: A major North American winter storm in December 2013 brought freezing rain and sleet to parts of the United States and Canada. Its mixed precipitation illustrates how regional temperature profiles produce both glaze and pellets.
Freezing rain: Freezing rain is liquid precipitation that freezes on contact with surfaces at or below freezing. A shallow cold layer lets drops remain liquid to the ground instead of refreezing aloft.
Hail: Hail consists of layered balls or irregular lumps of ice grown in strong thunderstorm updrafts. Hail is typically larger and grows inside thunderstorms rather than in a melting-and-refreezing layer.
Ice storm: An ice storm is a storm in which freezing rain creates significant ice accumulation on exposed surfaces. It is defined by glaze from freezing rain, not by bouncing ice pellets.
February 1994 North American cold wave: A severe cold wave in February 1994 brought record low temperatures across much of the eastern United States. Storms during the cold wave produced hazardous winter precipitation, including sleet in affected areas.
Warm nose: A warm nose is a layer of above-freezing air embedded within a colder atmospheric profile. It melts falling snow before a deeper subfreezing layer refreezes it.
Snow: Snow is precipitation made of ice crystals that remain frozen as they fall through the atmosphere. Snow bypasses the melting step needed to produce ice pellets.

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