Michele Bousquet, age 9, of Coventry, Rhode Island, for her question:

How can a summer storm freeze hail?

The clouds up there are full of surprises. When it's scorching hot on the ground, you would expect them to be pretty hot too. But this may not be so at all. Things are always cooler upstairs in the, sky than they are on the ground. Even in the steamy tropics, the top of a tall mountain may be cold enough to wear a snowy white cap, summer and winter. This is because the air gets cooler as we go higher above the ground.

In summer, even the gentlest white clouds are chilly. A wild thunderstorm is a mixture of cool and icy cold breezes, whirling around in all directions. Here and there it is cold enough to freeze water to solid ice, even when the ground below is scorching hot. Almost any summer thunderstorm can freeze the misty moisture in a cloud and build icy pellets of hail.