Abstract
Icing experiments are described in which artificial hailstones have been grown in a vertical wind tunnel at a relative speed of 18 m sec−1 at temperatures between −5 and −20C, and with liquid water contents of 2 and 4 gm −3. The results show that air bubbles can be characterized by log-normal distributions of their diameters with the mean sizes primarily dependent on the liquid water content. Doubling the liquid water content led to larger but fewer bubbles, while lowering the air temperature led to smaller but more numerous bubbles. Thus, it is expected that bubble size distributions and concentrations may be the key to the interpretation of hailstone history.
