The towing — expected among camp residents for more than a week — started just as ice pellets were starting to fall on a raw October day.

The embryos grow into soft ice pellets called graupel, says Sonia Lasher-Trapp, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Sleet is also called ice pellets.

In Canada, ice pellets and freezing rain were forecast overnight after parts of southern Ontario were blanketed in snow during the evening rush hour on Wednesday.

Farther north, Canada’s weather and climate agency said that storm conditions would bring a wintry mix of snow and ice pellets to southern Ontario late Wednesday and into Thursday.