Sleet is a watery, slushy mix of rain and partly frozen ice that usually falls in cold, wintry weather. Hail is hard, solid balls of ice that fall from thunderstorm clouds, often in warmer months. If it's making the roads slippery in winter, think sleet; if it's dented your car in a summer storm, that's hail.
The core difference
Sleet is a slushy rain-and-ice mix tied to cold winter weather, while hail is hard ice balls produced by storms, most often in warmer conditions.
- sleet — a wintry mix of rain and snow, or pellets of part-frozen rain: sleet coated the roads in a thin, slippery layer overnight.
- hail — small, hard balls of ice that fall during a storm: the hail dented the roof of every car parked outside.
How to tell them apart
Picture sleet as rain that didn't quite finish freezing — it lands slushy and makes roads and pavements slick underfoot, which is why it's such a familiar winter driving hazard. Hail, by contrast, is properly frozen: hard little balls of ice that can bounce, sting, and even dent metal, and it tends to show up with thunderstorms rather than a general cold snap.
A useful memory hook: sleet is slushy (both start with S and both feel wet), while hail is hard — and "hail" also has that unrelated sense of greeting someone or hailing a taxi, which has nothing to do with the weather at all.
