High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Ice pellets (also referred to as sleet by the United States National Weather Service) are a form of precipitation consisting of small, translucent balls of ice. Ice pellets usually are smaller than hailstones. They often bounce when they hit the ground, and generally do not freeze into a solid mass unless mixed with freezing rain. The METAR code for ice pellets is PL.