METAR/TAF Fun

[Richard]

The descriptor for small hail or snow pellets is GS. This would be a good time to ask our brethern in the north, what the heck is a snow pellet? Since it shares the same descriptor as hail is it hard like hail? PL is the descriptor for ice pellets. How is this different than snow pellets. SG for snow grain. What the heck is that? Are snow grains really fine snow?

Can these things be used to help identify upcoming wx?

Ex: Hey, it looks like (insert type of wx here) because we're getting ice pellets. I'm sure glad it's not snow pellets, 'cause that would mean we'd be having (insert type of wx here).

 

[jesse]

haha. Nooooo idea what they are thinking.

ice pelets though is basically going to be small hail.

whereas snow ..is more or less.. not so hard and..heavy?..

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

The old wives tale a while back was the Inuit had 150 different terms for snow and its products.... I bet a bunch of them were something like "&#%@$#$$#"

 

[fgcason]

Ice pellets (sleet) is liquid rain that has fallen into cold air and froze. They're pretty much solid ice. Small diameter kind of stuff.

Snow grains are basically frozen drizzle. They're very small with very little mass and usually don't accumulate very much at all.

Snow pellets are basically round and about the size of ice pellets. (1/4" or smaller) They form when supercooled water freezes on ice crystals or snow flakes. They also form when a snowflake partially melts then refreezes (then often loads up with more collected moisture). Snow pellets are more opaque in appearance than ice pellets and have air pockets inside. They're fairly soft and smooshy. They'll bounce a little when they hit hard objects but they loose a lot of kinetic energy when they hit and compress. They're often associated with stratocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds.

I've seen snow pellets followed by snow as the temperature drops. More commonly I've seen them followed and often mixed with cold rain when the surface temperature doesn't drop and stays near freezing. It's something I'm pretty sure I don't want to get involved with in an airplane because I'm cheeken and that accumulating liquid moisture at/below freezing temps bit scares me.