Met Mailbag is your chance to have a Weather Plus Meteorologist answer your weather question. Each Thursday, our NBC Weather Pulse Blog will publish the answers to questions you send us. This week's question was answered by NBC Weather Plus Meteorologist Kristen Cornett.

Question: Is it true that it's more likely to snow the closer the temperature is to 32 degrees F?
Submitted by Jack D., Hoboken, N.J.

Answer: Well Jack, whether or not it’s going to snow is a lot more complicated than the air temperature that we measure here on the ground.

You have to think of the atmosphere in layers. If the temperature is at or below freezing from the cloud all the way down to the ground, then precipitation will fall in the form of snow. It can still snow, however, if the temperature at the surface is above freezing as long as the other layers of the atmosphere are cold enough. In that case, the snow usually just melts after it hits the ground, as long as the temperature of whatever the snow lands on is below freezing too.

Here is where it gets a little more complicated. Sometimes, the temperature at the surface is below freezing and we get freezing rain or sleet instead of snow. The reason for this is that there is warm layer of air above the surface which causes the falling snow to melt. Once the snow melts in that warm layer, it can re-freeze again as it passes through the freezing temperatures close to the ground. If it’s a narrow layer of cold air at the surface, freezing rain is the result. If the layer of cold air at the surface is a little thicker, sleet results.

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