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Earth and Space Sciences · Glossary

What is Warm-rain process; ice-crystal process?

Also known as: warm-rain process · ice-crystal process

Definition 4.15 High School Earth and Space Sciences · Chapter 4 — Why Clouds Form

In the warm-rain process, the larger droplets of a cloud fall faster than the small ones, collide with them and merge, growing as they fall. In the ice-crystal process, in the part of a cloud colder than 0∘C0{}^{\circ}\mathrm{C} where ice crystals and supercooled droplets (liquid below 0∘C0{}^{\circ}\mathrm{C}) are mixed, the crystals grow by taking the vapour that the droplets evaporate; they fall as snowflakes, and melt into raindrops if the air below is warm.

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