has quality ice mass ice pellet 2021-04-14T18:57:18.275Z An ice mass which is 1) transparent or translucent, 2) rounded, spherically, or cylindrically shaped, and 3) less than 5 milimetres in diameter. They may be spherical, irregular, or (rarely) conical in shape. Ice pellets usually bounce when hitting hard ground and make a sound upon impact. They can fall as continuous precipitation or in showers. Now internationally recognized, ice pellets includes two basically different types of precipitation, known in the United States as 1) sleet or grains of ice, generally transparent, globular, solid grains of ice that have formed from the freezing of raindrops or the refreezing of largely melted snowflakes when falling through a below-freezing layer of air near the earth's surface; and 2) small hail, generally translucent particles, consisting of snow pellets encased in a thin layer of ice. The ice layer may form either by the accretion of droplets upon the snow pellet or by the melting and refreezing of the surface of the snow pellet. envoCryo envoPolar grain of ice ice grain sleet small hail transparent translucent spherical cylindrical