Sometimes when you're waiting for a snowstorm to start for what feels like forever, you might hear your weatherman say "the precipitation has started, it's just not reaching the ground." What is the term for that phenomenon?

Virga is what happens when rain or snow falls from clouds into relatively dry air. The precipitation is visible when it leaves the cloud, but then it evaporates on the way down, becoming water vapor before it ever reaches the ground.

Asked by Tom Cohen · Last updated 5 years ago · 3.3K views