Precipitation is water in either solid or liquid form that falls from Earth's atmosphere. Major forms of precipitation include rain, snow, and hail. When air is lifted in the atmosphere, it expands and cools. Cool air cannot hold as much water in vapor form as warm air, and the condensation of vapor into droplets or ice crystals may eventually occur. If these droplets or crystals continue to grow to large sizes, they will eventually be heavy enough to fall to the earth's surface.

Precipitation in liquid form includes drizzle and raindrops. Raindrops are on the order of a millimeter (one thousandth of a meter) in radius, while drizzle drops are approximately a tenth of this size. Important solid forms of precipitation include snowflakes and hailstones. Snowflakes are formed by aggregation of solid ice crystals within a cloud, while hailstones involve supercooled water droplets and ice pellets. They are...