How Is Rain Formed in Steps?

Clouds are made of water droplets. Within a cloud, water droplets condense onto one another, causing the droplets to grow. When these water droplets get too heavy to stay suspended in the cloud, they fall to earth as rain. Come to think of it, what makes it snow, hail, and sleet?

How Is Rain Formed in Steps?

Rain is a natural phenomenon that has been occurring for thousands of years and is the result of a complex process. The process of rain formation can be broken down into six distinct steps.

First, warm air rises up into the atmosphere where it cools and condenses into clouds. The condensation of warm air causes the formation of tiny water droplets which collect and combine together to form larger droplets. This process is known as condensation nucleation.

Second, the rising air carries the clouds up into the atmosphere where the temperature drops further. This causes the water droplets in the clouds to freeze and form ice crystals. The crystals are then pushed out of the clouds by the wind, causing them to fall back to the ground in the form of snow.

Third, as the snow falls back to the ground, it melts and combines with the warmer air near the ground, forming a layer of liquid water droplets. This layer of droplets is known as cloud condensation nuclei or CCN.

Fourth, the liquid droplets are pushed up higher into the atmosphere by the wind where the temperature drops even further. This causes the liquid droplets to freeze and form ice crystals. As the ice crystals fall back to the