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:
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When we are old as you? When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Ah, but to play man number one,
To drive the dagger in his heart,
To lay his brain upon the board
And pick the acrid colors out,
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Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,
To strike his living hi and ho....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)