Gail Stephens, age 12, of Carrolon, for her question:

Sleet is a word some people use to describe a fall of slushy, wet snow, But when the weatherman talks about sleet, he means a fall of small pellets of clear ice. This is different from hail, which is a fall of frosty white pellets. As a rule, sleet falls down with a mixture of rain drops. At certain seasons, rain may turn to sleet or sleet may turn to rain. For the two are close cousins, each raindrop is made from countless droplets of cloud mist. Sleet starts out as raindrops, far above the ground where the air is above the freezing point of water. As it falls, the rain may chill the air beneath or maybe colder air blows in under the rain cloud. In any case, when the lower air falls below freezing point, the raindrops freeze before they reach the ground. The cold rain turns to a fall of sleet.