FARMERSBURG, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — What is Graupel?
It would be a good word if you’re playing Scrabble.
It is not to be confused with scrapple. A combination of pork pork scraps and trimmings.
And don’t confuse it with hail or sleet. The look different and have different textures.
Grauple starts out life as snow.
The snow falls through a layer of supercooled water droplets.
Supercooled droplets equals water drops with a temperature below 32-degrees.
The droplets freeze, or rime, onto the snowflakes. Rime is frost formed on cold objects by the rapid freezing of water vapor in a cloud or fog.
The end result, tiny, white pellets that resemble small hail.
Unlike hail, they are soft and crushable.

Graupel commonly forms in high-altitude climates and is both denser and more granular than ordinary snow, due to its rimed exterior and higher density. The combination of density and low viscosity makes fresh layers of graupel unstable on slopes, and present a high risk of dangerous slab avalanches. In addition, thinner layers of graupel falling at low temperatures can act as ball bearings below subsequent falls of more naturally stable snow, rendering them also liable to avalanche or otherwise making surfaces slippery.