Water is an essential ingredient to life on Earth. In its three phases (solid, liquid, and gas), water continuously cycles within the Earth and atmosphere to create significant parts of our planet’s climate system, such as clouds, rivers, vegetation, oceans, and glaciers. Precipitation is a part of the water cycle, where water particles fall from clouds in the form of rain, sleet, snow, ice crystals, and/or hail.

So how does precipitation form? As water on Earth’s surface evaporates it changes from liquid to gas and rises into the atmosphere. Because air cools as altitude increases, the vapor rises to a point in the atmosphere where it cools enough to condense into liquid water or freeze into ice, which forms a cloud. Water vapor continues to condense and stick to other water droplets in the cloud until the weight of the accumulated water becomes too heavy for the cloud to hold. If the air in the cloud is above freezing (0°C or 32°F), the water falls to the Earth as rain. If the air in the cloud is below freezing, ice crystals form and it snows if the air between the cloud and the ground stays below 0°C (32°F). If a snowflake falls through a warmer part of a cloud, it can get coated in water, then refrozen multiple times as it circulates around the cloud. This forms heavy pellets of ice, called hail, that can fall from the sky at speeds estimated between 14 and 116 kmph (9 and 72 mph) depending on its size. A hailstone can range from the size of a pea (~0.6 cm or 0.25 inches) to a golf ball (~4.5 cm or 1.75 inches), and sometimes even reach the size of a softball (~10 cm or 4 inches).

Precipitation doesn’t fall in the same amounts throughout the world. The presence of mountains, global winds, and the unequal distribution of land and sea cause some parts of the world to receive greater amounts of precipitation compared with others. Areas with rising moist air generally indicate regions with high precipitation. According to the Köppen Climate Classification System, tropical wet and tropical monsoon climates receive annual precipitation of 150 cm (59 inches) or greater. Tropical wet regions, where rain occurs year-round, are found near the equator in central Africa, the Amazon rainforest, and southern India. Monsoons are storms with large patterns of wind and heavy rain that can span over a continent. Tropical monsoon climates are located mainly in Southeast Asia and areas around the Pacific Ocean, where annual rainfall is equal to or greater than areas with a tropical wet climate. Here, intense monsoon rains fall during the three hottest months of the year, which are usually between June and October. Snow and ice, which are most common in high altitudes and latitudes, cover most of the Earth’s polar regions. High altitude regions of the Andes, Tibetan Plateau, and the Rocky Mountains maintain some amount of snow cover year-round.

Over the next century, it is predicted warming global temperatures will increase the temperature of the ocean and increase the speed of the water cycle. With a quicker rate of evaporation, there will be more water in the atmosphere allowing clouds to produce heavier precipitation and more intense storms. Although storms would be more intense in wetter regions, increased evaporation could also lead to extreme drought in drier areas of the world. This would greatly affect farmers who grow crops in dry locations like Southern California or Kansas.

This map layer shows Earth’s mean precipitation (measured in centimeters per month) averaged from 1981-2010 as calculated by the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The data was collected from the Copernicus satellite and validated with precipitation measurements from weather stations. Scientists averaged all of the amounts (originally collected in meters) occurring each month together, then they calculated the average of each month over 30 years to create this map.