Rain shower at -1.4ºC

This was a new one to me this morning, just had a Rain shower at -1.4

We get some bad freezing rain storms here. The last one we had knocked the power out for 4 days. They call it freezing rain cause it looks like rain, but then freezes on contact. A lot worse than snow.

Agree, ice storms are definitely worse than a snowstorm with regards to damage, especially those with significant ice accumulation. Winter precip types are interesting and the determining factor that affects the type (sleet vs freezing rain vs snow…etc) depends a lot on the depth of the warm air layer above.

A nice article on that here.

Happy New Year all! :slight_smile:
Bill

Cheers guys, what’s more interesting is, the dam was below 528 and the 850 was - 5C, everything was primed for snow except it fell as rain, why would that be?

Just because the temp is at freezing, it doesn’t mean its always snow. A lot of factors can cause freezing rain instead of snow. This link should help… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freezing_rain

The air temp just above the surface is above freezing. It only takes 1 degree difference.

Several years ago we had an ice storm…it was 27 degrees and rained HARD for over two hours. Then the temp plunged to 5F, what a nice mess that made. Car tires were literally frozen to the ground, lots of tree limbs down, power lines down.

This is another dandy we went through. I remember reading reports of areas of Arkansas had powerline poles snapped and lines down for 10 mile stretches. Took up to a month for some areas to get power restored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2009_North_American_ice_storm

Timely thread. Today we (@ 40F) had what I called hail, but my better half said “no, can’t be hail, there was no thunder”. The internet seems to support that so I guess we had some other flavor of ice pellets :roll:

graupel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel

We get that here quite a bit.

It certainly looked very like the handful shown on that page :slight_smile:

There like small snowballs, not ice.

Researching frozen precip I discovered that “sleet” is ice pellets in American English, and (non-settling) rain/snow mix in British English :lol:

Why cant we all just call everything the same thing. It would make things so much easier… :lol:

You mean the correct way i take it :wink: :silly: :lol:

We call them “Snow Pellets” here in Scotland, Niko. :smiley:
When I was in the Outer Hebrides we saw them a lot more than we saw actual snow and they normally came in showers.

We do have a name for it all, called precipitation :slight_smile:

Snow Pellets are caused when snow falls through an above freezing layer and partly melts. Can be in showers as well.

Snow grains same as above but caused by frozen drizzle.

Ice pellets are caused by rain falling through a below freezing layer. Can be in showers as well.

Hail is caused by rain drops moving up and down many times through a below freezing layer in the tops of cumulonimbus clouds. the more trips, the bigger the hail. Always showers.

Freezing rain or drizzle are super cooled water droplets that freeze on contact if temp below freezing. If you’re in a plane passing through this you get clear icing and/or rime icing.

rick