The roots of precipitation date back to 4.4 billion years ago when the Earth existed in liquid water and was covered with water vapour and steam in the atmosphere. Then for millions of years, with the cooling of the planet,

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Precipitation is a major component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately

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Cooling air to its dew point
The dew point is the temperature to which a parcel of air must be cooled in order to become saturated, and (unless super-saturation occurs) condenses to water. Water vapor normally begins to condense on

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Frontal activity
Stratiform or dynamic precipitation occurs as a consequence of slow ascent of air in synoptic systems(on

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The standard way of measuring rainfall or snowfall is the standard rain gauge, which can be found in 100 mm (4 in) plastic and 200 mm (8 in) metal varieties. The inner cylinder is filled by 25 mm (1 in) of rain, with overflow flowing into the outer cylinder. Plastic gauges

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The likelihood or probability of an event with a specified intensity and duration, is called the return periodor frequency. The intensity of a storm can be predicted for any return period and

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Raindrops
Coalescenceoccurs when water droplets fuse to create larger water droplets, or when water droplets

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