When was the last time you discovered your car was covered with ice before going to work?
You guessed it right; I’m talking about freezing rain.
Ever wondered how freezing rain occurs? Well, you are not the only one curious about this kind of rain. You might have seen snowfall, sleet rain.
However, freezing rain is different from them. Not only is that the impacts it creates is not the same. Within a few seconds, you will see the supercool droplets transforming into ice just after touching the surface.
In this article, I will discuss everything about freezing rain. In addition to that, you will know what factors make it different from another kind of rains.
What is Freezing Rain?
Freezing rain is supercool droplets that freeze rapidly just after making contact with the ground. It creates several centimeters thick icy layer, which results in very unsafe conditions.
To freeze the droplets, it has to be dropped on the extremely cold surface.
The diameter of these droplets is more than 0.5 mm. If you see droplets being smaller than this, then most likely it was drizzled and widely separated.
Freezing rain falls like typical regular rain, but the difference is, it freezes when contacting with the ground and the droplets are supercool.
It is totally fine if you want to enjoy the typical type of rain outside of your house. But if you do the same with freezing rain, the results would be harmful.
What Causes It?
What if I tell you, freezing rain does not come all the way down to the earth’s surface in a liquid form? Would not you be amazed?
Let me explain.
It all starts with the cloud naturally. Snowflakes fall from the cloud and pass through the warm area in the air.
Due to the higher temperature, the warm air makes the snowflake melt into cold water.
After passing through the warm area in the air, the melted water then falls through a below freezing space for a short period.
That is the reason why the cold water does not get enough time to form as ice or snow again.
Now, it is show time. The water droplets contact with the extremely cold surface and turn into ice within a few seconds.
This is why you can even see the drops of water from trees turning into ice. However, this is not the only thing happens to the trees.
The droplets fall through sub-zero areas where the temperature is less than 0°C and just above the ground. That is the reason why the droplets become supercool.
Difference between Freezing Rain and Sleet Rain
Now, you are probably want to know the difference between freezing rain and sleet rain.
Both the types of rain may seem similar to you, but they do have differences between them as well.
Try to picture sleet falls as ice pellets and bounces off your roof, ground, and windshield.
Want to know how do they make it so far? Keep going.
The journey of sleet also starts with snowflakes. It melts during the time of passing through the warm area in the atmosphere.
Before falling on the ground, the melted water goes through extremely cold layer near the surface and refreezes into ice.
Finally, it touches the ground as solid ice, known as sleet.
On the other hand, even though freezing rain also starts with snowflakes, as I have mentioned before, it had to go through the depth of extreme cold layer which is very close to the surface.
So, it does not get time to refreeze again like sleet rain.
In a nutshell, the atmospheric condition determines the outcome, how the snowflakes will fall. Whether it would be freezing rain or sleet, depends on the thickness of the warm atmosphere.