ENVIRSC 1C03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Viscous Liquid, Ice Crystals, Supercooling
3 Sep 2018
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Document Summary
Any form of water that falls from a cloud and reaches the ground; liquid or solid crystals that fall from the atmosphere to the ground surface. Their formation begins when saturated air rises rapidly. As it rises, it cools which forces condensation and creates droplets of water in the cloud. As more condensation is added, the drops grow until they reach diameters of 50-100um. Droplets are carried aloft in the rising cloud and they collide and coalesce (come together to form one mass or whole) with each other creating drops 1000-5000 um in size. As the drops grow, their weight increases until it overcomes the upward force of the rising air and they start to fall down. As they descend, they become unstable and break into smaller drops. Collision and coalescence; speed of the raindrops relative to their size. As a cloud droplet falls,, air resistance slows it down.
