DENVER ( KDVR ) — On Tuesday night, a storm swept through the Denver metro, but it looked different than a winter storm. The weather phenomenon wasn’t snow, it wasn’t rain and it wasn’t exactly hail either.
It was graupel.
The system that passed through the Denver metro and Palmer Divide on Tuesday night was a mixture of snow, rain and hail, but once it was on the ground, it looked more like Dippin’ Dots than a winter storm.
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It’s a weather phenomenon known as graupel, which looks like hail and is formed in similar conditions, but it’s wetter, and it can be squished between your fingers. On Tuesday night, blobs of the mixture fell on the ground and stayed on car windshields by Wednesday morning.
Pinpoint Weather Meteorologist Travis Michels said graupel occurs when it is almost freezing and there is a lot of moisture in the air. When snow falls during these conditions, it passes through the atmosphere, picking up supercooled water droplets. The droplets freeze onto the snowflake, creating a small snowball…