Michael J. Holasek, age 10, of Cudsy,., for his question:

What causes hail?

Hail can form only in a storm of grant violence. Usually it pelts down from a thunderstorm or tornado. These storms are centers of violent winds and air currents, fierce clashes between masses of cool and warm air, damp and dry air. Whenever hail comes tumbling down you may be sure that a fierce weather battle is in progress way above your head.

A hailstone is, of course, a smell pellet of is©. You may capture ono bolero it molts and slice it in half. The cross section looks like the inside of an onion. The ice seems to be arranged in layers, one outside the other. Some of these jackets are hard end. white, soma are softer and more transparent.

Them are at least two theories as to how a hailstone is made. In any case it is born in a: small local storm where violent air currents swoop up and down. The older theory suggests that the hailstone b©g^n as a small raindrop which froze to ice when it was whisked through a region of cold air. It then swooped through a region of warm cloud mist and became coated with moisture. This moisture froze into a jacket of new ice as the hailstone was whisked through cold air again. This theory trios to explain how the icy jackets ware built around the hailstone.

%s newer theory does not agree with this idea. However, it dons agree that the hailstone was taken for a long roller coaster ride high in the heart of a violent storm. It begins low in a cloud where freezing temperatures turn a raindrop into ice, kt this point it is whisked aloft on a rising currant of air. Here the cloud is supercooled.

This means that the temperature is below the freezing point of water but, for some reason, the liquid. moisture in the cloud has not turned to ice. This moisture, whether it is mist or raindrops, turns to ice the minute it touches a cool surface. Ice showers which coat the telephone wires and put jackets of glassy ice on the trees are caused. by supercooled moisture,

The frozen raindrop roller coasts through masses of supercooled cloud mist high above the ground. is it touches th"se tiny droplets of supercooled moisture they turn to Ice, An ice jacket is added to the hailstone. The longer the roller coaster ride the bigger the hailstone becomes.

Finally it must fall. It may become too heavy for the rising current of air to hold. aloft. It may lose the rising current and be swept into a current of descending air. It any case, down pelts our hailstone with a host of its icy relatives.