What the Hail? The SouthCoast Gets Gentle Graupel Storm on Easter of 2022

Just when the weather on the SouthCoast took a turn for warmer days ahead, Easter Sunday brought about an interesting twist.

The time was roughly around 4:00 PM, the ham sweats and food comas were laid on thick and Easter dinner was a success all around. Out of nowhere, the skies opened up above and showered the SouthCoast with a soft blanket of what appeared to be snow.

At a closer look, it appeared to be hailing but wasn't anything damage worthy.

Get our free mobile app

I reached out to ABC 6 Meteorologist Jeff Desnoyers who informed me that the term for the sudden snowfall was called "graupel" or soft hail to be more specific.

"It's often mistaken for snow, but usually, a cool pool of air aloft that is rather shallow will help with bringing us the graupel treat," Desnoyers explained.

For a good 5-7 minutes, everywhere from New Bedford to Dartmouth and even over in Rhode Island witnessed the odd precipitation.

These soft pellets of snow were first discovered 133 years back in 1889 resemble the mess styrofoam makes when you're unboxing a new kitchen appliance, but there's nothing to worry about, it's harmless.

According to the Farmer's Almanac, Graupel is made up of small balls of snow, and not ice.

"This form of precipitation starts as snowflakes, then those snowflakes grow larger and larger as supercooled water funnels up into the clouds and bonds to the flakes." -Farmers Almanac 

Easter miracle or spontaneous weather system. Either way, it could be worse- the Easter Ham could have been dry.