Graupels

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of winter atmospheric occurrence where tiny ice particles form from supercooled droplets freezing upon encountering snowflakes
2. This phenomenon involves small, soft ice pellets created when supercooled water droplets freeze on contact with existing snow
3. Small, round ice particles that develop from supercooled liquid droplets freezing into soft pellets in winter weather conditions

Etymology: "Graupel" is a German word, and its sense of winter weather comes from the grain it was named after. In German, "Graupe" meant hulled grain or pearl barley, a small hard pellet of cereal. From it came the verb "graupeln," meaning to hail with soft hailstones, and the diminutive "Graupel" was then formed from that verb, producing a name for those soft, crumbly pellets of ice. The roots reach back to a Proto-Slavic word "krūpà," meaning grainy substance or groats, which also gave the sense of hail. So the same image of small grains lies behind both the barley and the falling ice. The word entered English as a loan from German "Graupelwetter," literally "graupel weather," and the German compound shows how the term was tied to a particular kind of winter storm. "Graupels" is simply the plural of "graupel," used when speaking of several such pellets or repeated falls of them.

Synonyms: soft hail, snow pellets