What is Precipitation | Science for Kids?

Precipitation is when water falls from the sky to the ground, just like rain or snow falling on your head when you're outside.

Imagine you have a glass of water, and you heat it up. The water starts to turn into steam, that’s evaporation. Now imagine this happens in the air above us. Water from oceans, lakes, or even your puddle turns into invisible water vapor, which rises high into the sky.

As the vapor goes higher, it gets colder. When it gets cold enough, the vapor changes back into tiny drops of water, that’s condensation. These drops stick together and form clouds.

When the cloud gets heavy with all those tiny water drops, they fall down to Earth as precipitation, which can be rain, snow, sleet, or hail, depending on how cold it is up in the sky!

Precipitation is like nature’s way of watering the plants and filling up rivers and lakes. Without it, we wouldn’t have fresh water to drink or grow food, so it's a little bit like a water delivery service from the sky!