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Mystery #3Tier 2weather / storms / ice

How do lumps of solid ice fall from a summer sky?

On a baking hot summer day, when everything around you is warm, chunks of solid ice can come crashing out of the sky. Some hailstones are as small as peas, but the biggest can be larger than a tennis ball and smash a car window. It seems impossible that ice this big could form when the ground is so warm. So where does it come from, and how does it grow so large?

An open palm holding two small clear lumps of hail, with wet ground and a parked car blurred behind.
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Your guess

What do you think keeps a little bit of ice up in the sky long enough to grow so big?

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