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As you are doing your research on the Water Cycle. Upload a picture of your stage of the water cycle here to this Padlet Board. Include your group's name and group name members in the description and title it the name of your stage of the water cycle.

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The Water Cycle: Collection, Condensation, Precipitation, Evaporation, Learning Videos For Children

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Precipitation is any liquid or frozen water that forms in the atmosphere and falls back to the Earth. It comes in many forms, like rain, sleet, and snow. Along with evaporation and condensation, precipitation is one of the three major parts of the global water cycle.

Precipitation forms in the clouds when water vapor condenses into bigger and bigger droplets of water. When the drops are heavy enough, they fall to the Earth. If a cloud is colder, like it would be at higher altitudes, the water droplets may freeze to form ice. These ice crystals then fall to the Earth as snow, hail, or rain, depending on the temperature within the cloud and at the Earth's surface. Most rain actually begins as snow high in the clouds. As the snowflakes fall through warmer air, they become raindrops.

Particles of dust or smoke in the atmosphere are essential for precipitation. These particles, called "condensation nuclei," provide a surface for water vapor to condense upon. This helps water droplets gather together and become large enough to fall to the Earth.

A common misconception is that when raindrops fall, they have a teardrop shape. In fact, smaller raindrops (ones that are approximately 1 millimeter (0.039 inches) across) are almost perfectly spherical. Larger raindrops (2-3 millimeters (.078-.118 inches) across) are also round, but with a small indent on their bottom side. They look more like kidney beans when falling to the Earth. Very large rain drops (larger than 4.5 millimeters (.177 inches)) have a huge indent and look more like a parachute. These extra-large drops usually end up splitting into two smaller droplets. The indents on raindrops are caused by air resistance.

Precipitation is always fresh water, even when the water originated from the ocean. This is because sea salt does not evaporate with water. However, in some cases, pollutants in the atmosphere can contaminate water droplets before they fall to the Earth. The precipitation that results from this is called acid rain. Acid rain does not harm humans directly, but it can make lakes and streams more acidic. This harms aquatic ecosystems because plants and animals often cannot adapt to the acidity.

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Precipitation | National Geographic Society

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Precipitation is any liquid or frozen water that forms in the atmosphere and falls back to the Earth. It comes in many forms, like rain, sleet, and snow. Along with evaporation and condensation, precipitation is one of the three major parts of the global water cycle.

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Condensation is the process where water vapor becomes liquid

Subjects

Earth Science, Meteorology, Physics

Condensation is the process where water vapor becomes liquid. It is the reverse action of evaporation, where liquid water becomes a vapor.

Condensation happens one of two ways: Either the air is cooled to its dew point or it becomes so saturated with water vapor that it cannot hold any more water.

Dew Point
Dew point is the temperature at which condensation happens. (Dew is simply condensed water in the atmosphere.) Air temperatures can reach or fall below the dew point naturally, as they often do at night. That's why the ground, structures, and objects left outside are often coated with water droplets in the morning.

Condensation can also produce water droplets on the outside of soda cans or glasses of cold water. When warm air hits the cold surface, it reaches its dew point and condenses. This leaves droplets of water on the glass or can.

When a pocket of air becomes full of water vapor, clouds form. The point at which condensation starts can be easily viewed in cumulus clouds, which have flat bottoms. Those flat bottoms are where vapor begins to condense into water droplets.

Saturation
Clouds are simply masses of water droplets in the atmosphere. Molecules in water vapor are far apart from one another. As more water vapor collects in clouds, they can become saturated with water vapor. Saturated clouds cannot hold any more water vapor. When clouds are saturated with water vapor, the density, or closeness, of the molecules increases. The vapor condenses and becomes rain.

Cold air holds less water vapor than warm air. This is why warm climates are often more humid than cold ones: Water vapor remains in the air instead of condensing into rain. Cold climates are more likely to have rain, because water vapor condenses more easily there.

Fast Fact

Making Rain
Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) are microscopic bits of clay, salt, or solid pollutants such as ash from smoke. Water in clouds condenses around these condensation nuclei to form raindrops.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Illustrators

Mary Crooks, National Geographic Society

Editors

Jeannie Evers, Emdash Editing, Emdash Editing

Producer

National Geographic Society

other

Last Updated

October 19, 2023

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Condensation is the process where water vapor becomes liquid

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Evaporation is the process by which a liquid turns into a gas. It is also one of the three main steps in the global water cycle.

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Home page for the Water Cycle topic.This website, presented by NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, provides students and educators with resources to learn about Earth's water cycle, weather and climate, and the technology and societal applications of studying them.