Talk:Ice pellets

Creation of page

I separated out the ice pellets portion of the sleet article and, after some more tweaking, put it here. Famartin (talk) 14:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion relevant to this article prior to the April 2008 split remains on Talk:Sleet. --Una Smith (talk) 16:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"Ice pellets are smaller than hailstones which form in thunderstorms rather than in winter"

You can get thunderstorms in winter as well. Is this sentence intending to mean that ice pellets only form in winter (and not from thunderstorms), as opposed to hail that can form in thunderstorms regardless of season? Iapetus (talk) 12:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Alternative title in lead

Famartin, please read MOS:ALTNAME. Per the sources I've added to the article, sleet is clearly a significant alternative name for ice pellets, and therefore should be in the lead section. Per MOS:LEADCLUTTER, a separate section for alternative names is only necessary if there are more than two. Please restore my changes. AdA&D 14:57, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

There is an article for sleet to describe the various usages of the term, and there has been *SO* much back and forth from so many others saying "no, I'm in America and I don't consider ice pellets to be sleet", it *DOES NOT* need to be in the lead. The term has proven very contentious among editors here. Famartin (talk) 17:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

British usage

Certainly we call ice pellets hail in Britain, whatever the size of the pellets. We use the term sleet for the mixture of snow and rain with or without pellets. This latter is a very common form of precipitation during British winters. I've never heard the term ice pellets used here. Moving on, I think the first sentence is an awful piece of communication -- far, far too long. I would like to see hail and ice pellets at the top as equivalent terms, and shorter sentences all through. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:20, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Macdonald-ross, actually, you are probably not usually referring to ice pellets as hail in Britain because ice pellets aren't common in Britain. What you refer to as "hail" is actually most likely graupel. Famartin (talk) 14:43, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

A new term to me. We live and learn! Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:34, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Famartin Perhaps that's the issue? People in the UK rarely encounter ice pellets, and the effects appear to be similar to hailstones, so a weather forecast here would just call them hail? There is a definition of "ice pellets" on the Met Office site , so that is the term they would use if they wished to distinguish them.

I changed "Commonwealth English" to "Canadian English" in the lead, anyway, as this matches a dictionary, and I wouldn't want someone to think that the average British person would know that "ice pellets" are to do with weather. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 21:50, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I came here to weigh in from the Northern US (MI) and say that we also say sleet in reference to soft/slushy hail mixed with rain or show. I trust your sources, but I was very confused upon learning that apparently sleet is the harder variant. Rootntootncowboy (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

I suppose I should clarify that what we call hail is actually graupel, which was a new term for me as well haha. Rootntootncowboy (talk) 16:31, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

References