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Precipitation A distinction is drawn in the present and past weather codes between rain, drizzle and showers. Showers are of short duration and the fair periods between them are characterized by clearances of the sky. Showers fall from clouds having great vertical extent and usually isolated. They do not often last more than half an hour. Showers are characteristic of an unstable polar air mass, usually flowing in the rear of a depression, but they are by no means confined to this situation.

Rain and drizzle fall from overcast or nearly overcast skies. The distinction between rain and drizzle depends not on the amount of the precipitation but on the size of the drops. Drizzle is 'precipitation in which the drops are very small' (diameter less than 0.5 mm). Slight rain, on the other hand, is precipitation in which the drops are of appreciable size (they may even be large drops), but are relatively few in number. Observers should decide from the size of the drops whether the precipitation is drizzle or rain, and from the combined effect of the number and size of the drops whether the precipitation is slight, moderate or heavy. The description 'heavy' is relatively rare in temperate latitudes.

Precipitation is defined as intermittent if it has been discontinuous during the preceding hour, without presenting the character of a shower. Observers should cultivate the practice of recording the times of onset and cessation of precipitation.