17 Amazing Freezing Rain Facts Every Kid Should Know!

The raindrop that freezes instantly and drops as freezing ice is called freezing rain.

Freezing rain starts as ordinary raindrops in liquid form. It passes through a supercooling level in the freezing air, 328 ft (100 m) high up on the sky, above the ground, and freezes while dropping down as tiny ice pellets.

The raindrop above the sky freezes on the surface; it drops everywhere, including on trees, the ground, cars, and roofs. This freezing rain forms ice, known as glaze ice, which can rack up to multiple centimeters.

Freezing rain is a phenomenon of winter weather. Ice can be more hazardous than snow in a winter storm. Snow can be plowed or shoveled, but ice is hard to manage. Ice starts spreading across all the uncovered and exposed areas; ice accumulation makes driving difficult, as vehicles will slide and tires lose their grip. Also, it can cause damage to the places or things it's falling on. At the same time, the ice pellet or sleet freezes up in the air.

How does freezing rain form?

Freezing rain forms with the difference in temperature that occurs amidst the levels of the atmosphere. Freezing rain develops when an ice storm or winter storm forms on the uppermost layer with storm clouds, which is a cold layer; the precipitation then forms snow. This precipitation, while falling, reaches a significant layer of warm air, which melts down and changes it into liquid... as raindrops.

The raindrops, while falling again, pass through a layer of cold air above the ground, reaching a freezing point where the droplets undergo a supercooling phase, forming glaze ice as they drop down. The cold air layer is minimal, so the raindrops don't freeze in the air; they instantly freeze as they hit the ground or the surface (e.g. trees, homes, automobiles, and wires.)

What is unique about freezing rain?

Sleet and freezing rain may appear similar, but they are distinct in a few unique ways. The contrast is the extent of the warm layer of air through which the precipitation leads.

In freezing rain, the warm layer is so large it doesn't allow the rain to freeze in the air as it transfers to the cold layer, which is beneath. Sleet travels through a small warm air layer and an extensive cold layer. So the sleet precipitation passing through the small warm layer is allowed to supercool and freeze in the cold layer, as it's larger, allowing the drops to freezing into tiny ice pellets, as sleet, completely. The main unique difference is that freezing rain freezes as it hits the surface or ground, while sleet freezes in the air before reaching the ground.

Is freezing rain dangerous?

Freezing rain is a hazardous climatic condition, which has a high rate of vehicle accidents and is a main winter hazard. Freezing rain and glaze in mass is called an ice storm which has a terrible effect on trees and plants. Ice storms hit trees, and the drops freeze on their branches adding a lot of weight, leading to the breakoff of tree limbs and damaging the tree.

Falling tree branches may hit people, houses, cars, and powerlines, causing damage to the surroundings. People are affected, with icy roads that cause vehicles to lose their grip leading to automobile accidents, making it very challenging to travel. Power lines are coated with accumulated ice, which makes them very heavy, causing lines, support poles, and insulators to break, disrupting power and electricity supply.

Freezing rain hits birds flying in the sky, coating their feathers and body with ice, leaving them unable to fly or seek shelter to protect themselves from the weather and predators. It also prevents them from gathering food leading to starvation. It also reduces their temperature to dangerous levels which can cause death.

Freezing rain and ice storms accumulating ice can increase the weight of an aircraft, making it challenging to fly. Also, the deficit of their de-icing system will not help them to fly in a severe ice storm. Even a sophisticated de-icing system is overwhelmed in heavy freezing rain. Winter storms and freezing rain are hazardous to aircraft, as they produce instant structural ice. The ice changes the shape of the aircraft's airfoil, which increases the drag and reduces the lift, resulting in reducing the performance of the aircraft, making it difficult to elevate or even maintain levels in the altitude. The only solution is for the aircraft to descend to a warm layer of air, but it's very risky with the freezing rain.

Does freezing rain actually freeze?

Freezing rain develops when the snow transports through a layer of warm air around 800 hPa (800 mbar) range, making the snowmelt and change to raindrops.

As these raindrops fall, they transfer through a layer of cold air at freezing point, resulting in the supercooling effect of the drop at 320 F (160 C). If this layer of cold air is vast, the raindrops will have time to freeze into ice pellets in the air, coming down as sleet before reaching the surface. If the freezing layer of cold air is small, they will hit the ground or surface as supercooled drops and freeze on the place they hit as an ice layer. Freezing rain freezes on the ground or surface it hits, like trees, branches, powerlines, ground, and aircraft, forming a thin ice layer. The process by which this happens is called nucleation.

Freezing Rain Temperature

Freezing rain is liquid precipitation that transports through a cold air surface and freezes on the ground and surfaces it reaches. The temperature conditions needed for freezing rain are: while forming it needs a warm air layer with the temperature control of 800 hPa (800 mbar) level, which helps the snow to melt, changing the ice crystals to raindrops, which are next transported to the layer beneath. This is the cold layer with (0 C or 32 F) zero or below freezing, which cools down the raindrops, and the supercooling effect causes it to produce striking hits, 32 F (0 C) momentarily freezing on the surface with a layer of ice formed.