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Water drops on a leaf A water drop falling from a tap. A drop or droplet is a small column of liquid, bounded completely or almost completely by free surfaces.A drop may form when liquid accumulates at the end of a tube or other surface boundary, producing a hanging drop called a pendant drop.
In meteorology, its role is crucial in the formation of rain. As droplets are carried by the updrafts and downdrafts in a cloud, they collide and coalesce to form larger droplets. When the droplets become too large to be sustained on the air currents, they begin to fall as rain.
Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated with water vapor: cooling the air or adding water vapor to the air. Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers. [2]
The large droplets can then collide with small droplets and combine to form even larger drops. When the drops become large enough that their downward velocity (relative to the surrounding air) is greater than the upward velocity (relative to the ground) of the surrounding air, the drops can fall as precipitation.
Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening due to condensation. [1] As the exposed surface cools by radiating its heat, atmospheric moisture condenses at a rate greater than that at which it can evaporate , resulting in the formation of water droplets.
Sleet and freezing rain form because of a "warm-air sandwich" in the atmosphere above our heads (see graphic, below). ... The hailstones grow bigger in the clouds as ice crystals and cloud ...
The lower temperature causes water vapor to condense into tiny liquid water droplets which are heavier than the air, and which fall unless supported by an updraft. A huge concentration of these droplets over a large area in the atmosphere becomes visible as cloud, while condensation near ground level is referred to as fog.
As the plane circled, supercooled cloud droplets, freezing rain or freezing drizzle formed a ridge of ice on the upper surface of its wings, eventually causing the aircraft's autopilot to suddenly disconnect and the pilots to lose control. The ATR disintegrated on impact with a field below; all passengers and crew were killed.