Definition of reservoir. 1 : a place where something is kept in store: such asa : an artificial lake where water is collected and kept in quantity for useb : a part of an apparatus in which a liquid is heldc : supply, store a large reservoir of educated people.
All three involve precipitation in the clouds, but each requires just the right set of circumstances to occur. One difference between sleet and hail is the time of year in which each occurs. Typically, hail is most often a summer occurrence, while sleet occurs mostly in winter. Youâre much more likely to see hail in warm and oppressive weather where a sudden thunderstorm occurs.
Rain develops from cloud droplets or ice crystals; if it starts as crystals, the rain first takes the form of snowflakes, but they melt when they enter warmer layers of air, changing into raindrops. In thunderstorms that have a central updraft capable of hosting both rain and snow, snowflakes fall, but the liquid water freezes together with them, making ice pellets that keep growing as they add more water droplets.