Why does hail fall as stones when snow falls as flakes?

Question

Why does hail fall as stones when snow falls as flakes?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Snow is frozen rain. It falls and cools below freezing.

Hail is different and is created in large storms, mostly. Those storm clouds have so much wind in them that water drops are being blown to the top of the cloud, where it is below freezing. A drop would freeze and then fall back down. On the way down within the cloud, it collects some more water vapor before being blown up again to freeze another time. This is repeated so often until the hail stone is too heavy and just has to fall down. The bigger the storm, the stronger the winds, the bigger the hail stones.