Precipitation

Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout its life cycle, starting when, under suitable conditions, the ice crystals form in the atmosphere, increase to millimeter size, precipitate and accumulate on surfaces, then metamorphose in place, and ultimately melt, slide, or sublimate away.

thumb|A large hailstone, about in diameter

Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening due to condensation. As the exposed surface cools by radiating its heat, atmospheric moisture condenses at a rate greater than that at which it can evaporate, resulting in the formation of water droplets.

In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwealth usage), snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor (reaching 100% relative humidity), so that the water condenses and "precipitates" or falls. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation; their water vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate, so fog and mist do not fa

thumb|240px|Drizzle in Norfolk, [[England.]]

thumb|upright=1.5|Macro photography of a natural snowflake A snowflake is a single ice crystal that is large enough to fall through the Earth's atmosphere as snow. Snow appears white in color despite being made of clear ice. This is because the many small crystal facets of the snowflakes scatter the sunlight between them.

upright=1.35|thumb|The Gathering of the Manna by James Tissot

rain, whose water is supercooled

genus of clouds

alt=|thumb|Graupel pellets in the morning, having fallen the previous day

transparent coating of glazed ice on a surface

thumb|Nimbostratus cloud|Nimbostratus virga thumb|Virga during a sunset over Saratov in south-west Russia

thumb|Soil and water being splashed by a raindrop

type of precipitation

precipitation of transparent, spherical or irregular particles of ice

ground-level cloud of ice crystals

Rainy Season in East Asia

sudden and brief rain or snowfall of variable intensities

perceived blood-like rain typically caused by aerial spores of microalgae Trentepohlia annulata

occurs when water droplets in the atmosphere freeze on objects they contact with on the surface

thumb|upright=1.35|A sunshower over a backyard in Ewing Township, New Jersey thumb|upright=1.35|A sunset sunshower in the [[Mojave Desert]] A sunshower, or sun shower, is a meteorological phenomenon in which rain falls while the sun is seen shining. A sunshower is usually a result of winds associated with a rain storm sometimes miles away, blowing the airborne raindrops into an area where there are no clouds. Sometimes a sunshower is created when a single rain shower cloud passes overhead, and the sun's angle keeps the sunlight from being obstructed by overhead clouds. Sunshower conditions oft

process in which small crystals preferentially dissolve and re-precipitate onto larger crystals over time

building or device used to collect water by condensing the water vapor present in the air

classes of precipitation distinguished by character, phase, or physical properties

drizzle, whose water is supercooled

NASA and JAXA spacecraft for measuring global rainfall

A megacryometeor is a very large chunk of ice which, despite sharing many textural, hydro-chemical, and isotopic features found in large hailstones, is formed under unusual atmospheric conditions which clearly differ from those of the cumulonimbus cloud scenario (e.g. clear-sky conditions). They are sometimes called huge hailstones, but do not need to form under thunderstorm conditions unlike hailstorms.

' is a Spanish word meaning drizzle or mist'. Although used in other contexts in the Spanish-speaking world, most importantly refers to the moist cold fog that blankets the coasts of Peru, southern Ecuador, and northern Chile, especially during the southern hemisphere winter. In Chile, a similar fog is called camanchaca. brings mild temperatures and high humidity to a tropical coastal desert. It also provides moisture from fog and mist to a nearly-rainless region and permits the existence of vegetated fog oases, called lomas. thumb|right|250px| in Lomas de Lachay, near Lima, Peru,

form of precipitation containing visible dust

water from precipitation

thumb|right|Band of thunderstorms seen on a weather radar display A rainband is a cloud and precipitation structure associated with an area of rainfall which is significantly elongated. Rainbands in tropical cyclones can be either stratiform or convective and are curved in shape. They consist of showers and thunderstorms, and along with the eyewall and the eye, they make up a tropical cyclone. The extent of rainbands around a tropical cyclone can help determine the cyclone's intensity.

light snowfall with little or no accumulation

colloquially "moody", changeable weather

monsoon in East Asia

thumb|right|300px|Dewbow around heiligenschein on the ground. thumb|right|300px|Dewbow on a spiderweb.

Geshem (גשם) is a Hebrew word for "rain," and is the name of a prayer for rain recited on the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret.

Water vapor transfer from the Amazon Basin

repeated area of rain that moves over the same region in a relatively short period of time