There can be many forms of precipitation: rain, snow, sleet, hail, drizzing, flurries, thunderstorms. You name it! Water falls from the sky in many forms because there is too much moisture to hold it all up there. Clouds become too heavy to hold all the moisture, they fall to Earth as precipitation.
Precipitation begins as ice crystals that collect each other to form large snowflakes(it's really cold in the clouds!). As the snow flakes pass through the freezing level of air they turn to rain drops; or, if it is freezing outside they stay as flakes.
Click on Collection for the next step.
Click on them to find out more information!
Link to Northern Michigan University
Melissa Teasley: mteasley@nmu.edu