Winter Has Returned to State College After A Long, Harsh Summer...

I woke up this afternoon the sweet sound and smell of spring rain....I mean the harsh metallic pounding of sleet on my window.

Yes, it's April in State College and after a long, hot summer in March, winter has returned to central Pennsylvania. It won't be long now until the Christmas lights go up and carols are being sung in the streets.

All kidding aside, by the reactions of some people you would think this change to wintry weather is the apocalypse, that when it's 80 degrees in March, it's going to be 80 degrees until September. I mean, why not? That is one of the effects of global warming, right? That's what I've been told by MSNBC.

In fact, the average snowfall in April in State College is 1.9 inches and the record is 20.5 inches! So to all the complainers...after a March that was the 2nd warmest on record with an average high temperature of 59 degrees, numerous days in the 70s, and the 3rd least snowy March on record you have no right to complain about a little cool down in April--we were spoiled.

One important job of a meteorologist is to put the weather in context for the public. In this case, meteorologists should be communicating how UNusual March was but how USUAL this current weather is.

This blog post wouldn't be complete without my once a year hail vs. sleet rant (one of my biggest pet peeves as a meteorologist, along with using relative humidity instead of dew point to describe how sticky it feels outside--I'll save that argument for a different time).

I saw/heard many comments today, including from the official Penn State Facebook page, that it was hailing! I mean... like oh my god it's totally hailing outside. There must, like, definitely be tornado nearby.

Now I'm not going to condemn and put all the blame on the public for being so ill-informed because the fact that so many people don't know the difference between hail and sleet is partially the fault of meteorologists. We need to do a better job educating the public.

In any event, NO ONE saw hail today (in State College)--if you live in Texas you would beg to differ I bet :) What fell from the heavens today was sleet, or graupel (pronounced GRAW-pull), or ice pellets. Basically, you were experiencing partially melted and then re-frozen snowflakes. Technically there is a slight difference between graupel and ice pellets but that's insignificant to this discussion.

Simply put, sleet occurs from late fall through early spring (in the Northeast) and generally falls during a snow storm or showery type of event.

Hail on the other hand is formed by convection (aka thunderstorms). Ice particles in a cloud fall toward the surface of the Earth and partially melt. Before they fall out of the cloud though, strong winds in a thunderstorm pick the ice back up and throw it back high into the atmosphere where it accumulates more water droplets (thus adding to its size and weight). Eventually, once the hail stone becomes too heavy for the winds to keep it airborne, it falls out of the cloud as hail.

A quick (but not fool proof or scientific) rule for determining between hail and sleet is that if it is thundering, it's hail. If not, it's sleet.

And I'm done...

Sleet, a generally late fall through early spring phenomenon (in the Northeast), is formed when snowflakes high up in the atmosphere fall through a layer of above freezing air and partially melt