Small Hail Observed This Afternoon

Evening temperature sounding from
Davenport, IA

One of our floor-directors here at WTVO/WQRF observed some small hail this afternoon on the east side of Rockford. There are no thunderstorms in the area, but since these showers are convective -- or vertical -- in their development with weak updrafts, this precipitation probably was hail and not sleet or graupel.

There was some disagreement, however, on the above topic. The NWS out of Milwaukee has been calling it hail, while the NWS in Chicago is calling it graupel. In case you are wondering what graupel is, it is a heavily-rimed snow particle that looks like soft, small hail. The only real way you can differentiate it from hail is that it has a diameter less than 5mm.