American Meteorological Society Certification (AMS) Practice 2025 - Free Practice Questions and Study Guide

Hail is composed of pellets of frozen rain, specifically formed under conditions in which updrafts in thunderstorms carry water droplets upward into extremely cold areas of the atmosphere where they freeze. As these frozen droplets are cycled through the storm clouds, they can accumulate additional layers of water until they become heavy enough to fall to the ground. This process involves the formation of a layered ice structure, which is characteristic of hailstones.

Other choices reflect different types of precipitation or processes: liquid rain droplets are part of rain, snowflakes consist of ice crystals formed in cold conditions, and ice particles formed in clouds typically refer to smaller, irregular pieces of ice that can sometimes be found in other forms of frozen precipitation, but not in the structured form typical of hail. This understanding of hail’s formation and composition distinguishes it from other meteorological phenomena.