Drizzle

Drizzle is a light liquid precipitation consisting of liquid water drops smaller than those of rain – generally smaller than 0.5 mm (0.02 in) in diameter. Drizzle is normally produced by low stratiform clouds and . Precipitation rates from drizzle are on the order of a millimetre per day or less at the ground. Owing to the small size of drizzle drops, under many circumstances drizzle largely evaporates before reaching the surface and so may be undetected by observers on the ground. The METAR code for drizzle is DZ.

While most drizzle has only a minor immediate impact upon humans, freezing drizzle can lead to treacherous conditions. Freezing drizzle occurs when supercooled drizzle drops land on a surface whose temperature is below freezing. These drops immediately freeze upon impact, leading to the buildup of sheet ice (sometimes called black ice) on the surface of roads.

Drizzle tends to be the most frequent form of precipitation over large areas of the world's oceans, particularly in the colder regions of the subtropics. These regions are dominated by shallow marine and trade wind cumulus clouds, which exist entirely within the marine boundary layer. Despite the low rates of surface accumulation, it has become apparent that drizzle actually exerts a major influence over the cloud structure, coverage, and radiative properties in these regions. This has motivated scientists to design more sophisticated, sensitive instruments such as high frequency radars that can detect drizzle. These studies have shown that the quantity of drizzle is strongly linked to cloud morphology and tends to be associated with updrafts within the marine boundary layer. Increased amounts of drizzle tend to be found in marine clouds that form in clean airmasses that have low concentrations of cloud droplets. This interconnection between clouds and drizzle can be explored using high resolution numerical modelling such as large eddy simulation.

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