FARGO -- Fall can bring us all types of precipitation: from rain to snow and everything in between. But as we transition away from seeing only rain showers this fall we start to forecast and feel more frozen forms of precipitation. And if you have a tough time differentiating, just turn to donuts.

Snow is the easiest comparison: powdered donuts look just like the frozen precipitation from afar and just the powdered sugar, snow completely coats everything it touches. Snow falls from the clouds and stays as snow the entire time.

Sleet falls from the clouds as snow but melts as it passes through a layer of warm air before hitting another, large layer of colder air where it refreezes. This creates something akin to sprinkles on donuts, perhaps not in color but certainly in sound.

You can have different kinds of sprinkles though: the spherical shaped ones are kind of like graupel, often confused with hail. Graupel forms when snowflakes fall through a cloud with super-cooled water droplets in it and they adhere to the snowflake, coating it to create the soft pellet.

Freezing rain is formed when snowflakes fall and melt in a large layer of warm air before reaching a very thin layer of cold air right near the ground, allowing the rain to freeze on contact, creating an icy glaze on the ground, very close to a glazed donut, but certainly not as tasty.