Is it sleet, snow then hailstones in terms of temperature? Do hailstones happen when the temperature is the coldest?
by 
Voodoo
ANSWERS: 3
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Nope Hail happens at any temp. Hail has to do with different temps layered in the atmosphere like hot over colder or the other way I ccan't remember, but as pirticulate matter rises and falls because of wind or mass condensation starts to coat the particles and freezes and then coats more then freezes making layers until the "hail stones" become to heavy to stay suspended and fall to the earth. When I lived in Alabama we had hail when it was 65 or 70 that was baseball-sized. It was awesome!
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Hailstones are mainly associated with thunderstorms. The higher the cloudtops (with thunderstorms), the colder the temperatures are in the air aloft. If there is lots of wind shear at higher atmospheric levels, hailstones are more likely to form. It begins like a raindrop, with a particle of some sort. The particle doesn't descend at first but keeps on getting blown by the wind back up into the upper levels of the atmosphere. Each time, the hailstone gets bigger. The more this happens, the larger the hail. This is why we see hail with more violent temperatures. Sleet happens in the winter, when the air aloft is cold enough to create frozen precipitation. The precip then hits a colder level and turns back to liquid. Then, if the air at the surface is below freezing, the liquid will refreeze creating sleet. Snow happens when the temperatures aloft and at the surface are consistently cold.
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It does not have to be cold to get hailstones. Though they usually occur during thunderstorms or sudden severe weather.
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