Freezing rain air at the surface within the region of high pressure. The warm air from the Gulf of Mexico is often the fuel for freezing precipitation. Freezing rain develops when falling snow encounters a layer of warm air aloft, typically around the 800 mbar (800 hPa) level, causing the snow to melt and become rain. As the rain continues to fall, it passes through a layer of subfreezing air just above the surface and cools to a temperature below freezing (). If this layer of subfreezing air is sufficiently deep, the raindrops may have time to freeze into ice pellets (sleet)
Hail . GR is derived from the French word grêle. Smaller-sized hail, as well as snow pellets, use the coding of GS, which is short for the French word grésil. Terminal velocity of hail, or the speed at which hail is falling when it strikes the ground, varies. It is estimated that a hailstone of in diameter falls at a rate of , while stones the size of in diameter fall at a rate of . Hailstone velocity is dependent on the size of the stone, friction with air it is falling through, the motion of wind it is falling through,