ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Soon, the News10NBC First Alert meteorologists will be talking about something called graupel. These are little pellets that fall from the sky and are sometimes referred to as soft hail.

If you look closely at the precipitation, it almost appears like the fun food known as “dipping dots”- something you may have had as a kid. It is very unique for Western New York, but something we can see at least once a year. Often graupel will mix with other types of precipitation.

How does graupel form? It starts as a snowflake in the upper atmosphere and as the snowflake falls it will encounter different layers of temperature in the atmosphere. Quite often it will reach a layer that contains “supercooled” water droplets. This is an area with water droplets that are below freezing.

These unusual liquid drops do not freeze until they come in contact with another surface or snowflake. This creates a point of adhesion which then produces a conglomeration of particles on the snowflake. This is the point that produces an irregular shape in the precipitation. At this point, the piece of graupel will continue to fall through the atmosphere and bounce as it reaches the ground as tiny white pellets.

Not an easy forecast because of the small details that go into the analysis. So we can say this is the point when the meteorologist is grappling with the graupel.