Graupel, Soft Hail, Snow Pellets
Below is a photo of the graupel that fell on our porch March 9, 2012. Graupel is also commonly known as soft hail , although it's not really hail, or simply snow pellets which is more descriptive.
Graupel is not terribly common in my area here in Western NY State, but we do usually see it once or twice a winter. It is formed when supercooled droplets of water collect and freeze on falling snowflakes. It tends to be great snow for packing snowballs, and has a unique crunching feel when walked on. It's not the hard frozen water of hail, but rather a soft, compressable pellet of snow.
Below is a closeup view of grauple from the image above.
This graupel is typically fairly small, with the largest in the photos above about 3/16 inches or just under 5 millimeters. The word "grauple" comes from the German term for this meteorological phenomenon.
