Freezing rain is the name given to rain that falls when surface temperatures are below freezing. Unlike rain and snow mixed, ice pellets, or hail, freezing rain is made entirely of liquid droplets. The raindrops become supercooled while passing through a sub-freezing layer of air many hundreds of feet above the surface, and then freeze upon impact with any object they encounter. The resulting ice, called glaze, can accumulate to a thickness of several centimeters. The METAR code for freezing rain is FZRA.
A storm that produces a significant thickness of glaze ice from freezing rain is often referred to as an ice storm. Freezing rain is notorious for causing travel problems on roadways, breaking tree limbs, and downing power lines. It is also known for being extremely dangerous to aircraft since the ice can effectively 'remould' the shape of the airfoil and flight control surfaces. (See atmospheric icing.)
Read more about Freezing Rain: Mechanism, Observations
Famous quotes containing the words freezing and/or rain:
“This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the
letting go—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella.”
—Charles Synge Christopher Bowen (1835–1896)