How can hail stay in the air before falling down, and how can it be big sometimes but small others?
In: Earth Science
The vertical winds in storm clouds can be crazy fast, both up and down, and at top of the cloud it’s cold enough that water freezes. Little seeds of ice form there and fall down. The next wind gust going up carries the small pieces of ice along where another layer freezes onto them. They drop a bit and get blown upwards again, and the hail balls grow layer by layer. Stronger upwards drafts can carry heavier balls of ice, until they’re finally so heavy that they fall out of the cloud.
ETA: It’s funny, we had just this topic earlier today and this is the actual elementary school explanation.
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