graupel
Americannoun
noun
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A small, white ice particle that falls as precipitation and breaks apart easily when it lands on a surface.
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Also called snow pellet soft hail
Etymology
Origin of graupel
1885–90; < German; diminutive of Graupe hulled grain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As showers shift south, high pressure is expected to build in the atmosphere above, creating conditions for potential lightning and graupel with the development of stronger showers in the afternoon, the weather service said.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 30, 2024
“And multiple showers will just follow to rain. We’ll only be concerned about maybe a few snowflakes and graupel, smaller than hail, during the nighttime overnight hours.”
From Seattle Times • Mar. 2, 2024
As to whether it was snow or graupel — soft hail — meterologist Lisa Phillips, with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said she couldn’t confirm without seeing it in person.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 24, 2023
By Friday morning, Eric Boldt, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, could confirm it had been graupel, which he defined as “basically snowflakes wrapped in ice.”
From New York Times • Feb. 24, 2023
As these icy particles bump into one another, they transfer electrical charges: the larger graupel tend to become negatively charged, whereas the smaller ice crystals end up with a positive charge.
From Scientific American • Aug. 2, 2022
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
