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Weather Lab 6-8 / Week 07 / Station Day
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Week 07 · Precipitation

Station Day

Station Day: Precipitation detectives
// Rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain and hail
⏱ about 20 min

Station Day: Precipitation Detectives

Saturday sunlight pours through the lab windows, and yesterday's puddles are shrinking fast.

Rocket is sorting photographs from the week: a jar with ice pellets, a wet street, a white rooftop.

"Every picture is a clue," he says. "Which kind fell, and what did it do when it landed?"

Raven pins them to the board in order. "What do you notice about the sleet picture?"

"The pellets are sitting on top of the puddle," Rocket says. "They were already frozen when they landed."

Nova projects a blank table beside the board. "Your family can play detective too," she says. "Give them the clues."

  1. Precipitation is water released from clouds as rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain or hail.
  2. Drops grow by bumping together or by water vapor freezing onto ice crystals until they are heavy enough to fall.
  3. Sleet freezes before it lands. Freezing rain freezes after it lands. Hail grows inside a thunderstorm.
  4. A straight-sided gauge gives an honest depth, and observers read rain to the hundredth of an inch.
  5. Bigger drops fall faster, and a real table from the Water Science School shows it.
◇ PRECIPITATION DETECTIVES
Each player writes a clue card for one kind of precipitation without naming it. Example: "I bounce when I land."
Shuffle the cards and read them aloud. The other players guess the kind and explain their reasoning.
Then walk outside together and look for evidence of the last precipitation: puddles, damp soil, dried mud lines, or none.
Check the rain gauge together. Read it, write it in the log, and empty it.
Finish by deciding which kind of precipitation your area gets most often, using the log from this course.
For a grown-up
The nearest National Weather Service office reports daily rainfall totals on weather.gov. Comparing them with the jar is the point of this week.
If you have the weather radio or alerts on, you can show your student where a hail or ice warning would appear.
A grown-up handles any cutting or taping of the gauge, and the gauge stays off roofs and ladders.
DETECTIVE CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Clue: "I coat the branches with ice after I land." Which kind am I?
Clue: "I am a ball of ice that rode an updraft." Which kind am I?
Clue: "I am a branched crystal with six points." Which kind am I?
Observers read rain to the nearest hundredth of an inch. How many hundredths are in one inch? Type a number.
WHY THIS EXERCISEReading to the hundredth is why the official gauge can report 1.34 inch instead of "about one."
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