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Types of ice: freezing rain versus sleet
AccuWeather
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2/10/2025
AccuWeather's Melissa Constanzer explains how sleet and freezing rain form.
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00:00
Oh, yeah, winter brings a ton of different hazards from cold to wind and longer times
00:11
in the dark, but perhaps none are as dangerous as ice as this person right here can tell
00:16
you.
00:17
And while Mother Nature can make slippery conditions with snow, ice is made in other
00:21
ways too.
00:22
In fact, there are two types of precipitation that we often refer to as meteorologists as
00:27
ice, and they are quite different in the way not only that they form, but also the
00:31
impacts that they might have as you're trying to get out and about.
00:35
Freezing rain versus sleet.
00:36
So let's break them down for you.
00:38
First, we'll start off with sleet, which forms much like most precipitation in the atmosphere,
00:44
starts as little snowflakes, comes through a warmer layer where at least the edges of
00:48
the snowflakes melt a little bit.
00:50
And then as it goes through that deep, colder layer, like you see on the right-hand side
00:53
of your screen, it starts to refreeze into little balls.
00:57
Those little balls, those little ice balls, that's what we call sleet.
01:01
And that is sometimes shovelable, and you can actually shovel it or plow it if you get
01:06
enough of it.
01:07
And it can be a little bit like snow.
01:10
Freezing rain is a little bit different.
01:12
Starts off as snow, still falls through that warm layer, but actually melts into a rain
01:16
droplet.
01:17
Then as it hits the ground, whether it's the pavement or the tree branches or the power
01:21
lines, those surfaces are below freezing.
01:24
It could even just be your car hood.
01:26
And because of that, it creates a thin glaze of ice.
01:29
Like an ice skating rink, you can actually skate a little bit on it and maybe play a
01:33
little bit of hockey too.
01:35
Those things, obviously with freezing rain, can lead up to a buildup of ice coverage that
01:40
leads to some of those scenes that you see with the icy glaze on the trees.
01:43
But it can also mean significant problems for power outages.
01:46
It puts three to five hundred extra pounds of weight on power lines.
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