Snow and Hail
Snow is frozen water
Hail is frozen water
Snow and hail fall from the clouds
What is snow?
Snow is frozen water. It is made up of tiny, six-sided ice crystals, which form on dust particles inside very cold clouds. The crystals grow in size and join together. They become heavy and drop down through the clouds.
The shape of snow crystals
snowflakes greatly magnified......................
There are different crystal shapes, but they are always six-sided or have six branches coming out of a central core. Each snowflake is different.
Snow is useful
Snow is useful because when it melts, the water fills rivers and dams. Because it melts slowly, snow doesn't usually cause flooding.
Snow is also fun. People ski on it and play in it.
Snow can be dangerous
However, snow can be dangerous for farm animals when it is very heavy, and difficult to walk through. It covers the food they eat and freezes the water. Snow is dangerous for traffic when it piles up on the roads. It can be very dangerous as an avalanche. An avalanche is a large mass of snow that slips down a mountain. People have been killed by avalanches.
What is hail?
Sometimes hailstones can be very big, but usually they are very small
Hail is pieces of ice falling from the sky. They form in very cold cumulonimbus rain clouds. Most hailstones melt before they reach the ground. Hailstorms are usually short and violent.
Find out more about snow http://nsidc.org/snow/
Click here to see some photographs of real snowflakes
http://snowflakebentley.com/snowflakes.htm
Acknowledge this
source in your bibliography like this:
Thomas, Ron & Sydenham, Shirley. Snow and Hail. [Online], www.kidcyber.com.au (2009)
Other weather pages on
kidcyber:
Clouds .. Cyclones & Tornadoes .. Cyclone Tracy .. Dew
& Frost .. Ice
..
Thunder &
Lightning ..
Wind ... Fun Weather Facts
July 2009