graupel

As showers shift south, high pressure is expected to build in the atmosphere above, creating conditions for potential lightning and graupel with the development of stronger showers in the afternoon, the weather service said.

Graupel, also known as snow pellets or soft hail, forms when water droplets freeze onto a snow crystal, according to the National Weather Service.

“And multiple showers will just follow to rain. We’ll only be concerned about maybe a few snowflakes and graupel, smaller than hail, during the nighttime overnight hours.”

Inside turbulent storm clouds, the collision of tiny ice crystals and graupel—a kind of soft, frozen precipitation—creates an electric field, known as the charging zone, where lightning is born.

The negatively charged graupel are heavier, so they fall toward the bottom of the cloud.