how does freezing rain happen

Freezing rain happens when liquid raindrops fall through cold air near the ground and freeze the instant they hit surfaces like roads, trees, or power lines.

Quick Scoop

Step-by-step: how it forms

1. High in the cloud, precipitation usually starts as snow because the air up there is below freezing.

2. The snow falls into a warm layer of air above the ground and completely melts into regular rain.

3. Closer to the surface, there is a shallow layer of sub-freezing air (below 0 °C), but it is not deep enough or cold enough to refreeze the drops into ice pellets (sleet).

4. The drops become “supercooled”: they are liquid, but their temperature is below freezing.

5. When these supercooled drops hit anything that is at or below 0 °C (roads, sidewalks, trees, power lines, cars), they freeze on contact and form a smooth, clear coating of ice—this is freezing rain.

A simple mental picture: imagine ordinary rain falling through a thin, invisible “freezer layer” just above the ground; it doesn’t freeze in the air, but the moment it touches a cold surface, it turns to ice.

Weather setup behind freezing rain

• Often linked with warm fronts where warm air is sliding over shallow cold air at the surface.

• Common during winter storms when cold air is trapped in valleys or near the ground and warmer, moist air flows over it.

• This kind of temperature pattern (cold–warm–cold with height) is called a temperature inversion.

Why it’s different from sleet and snow

• Snow: stays in freezing air all the way down, so flakes reach the ground as snow.

• Sleet (ice pellets): snow melts into rain, then spends longer in deep cold air, so the drops refreeze into little ice pellets before hitting the ground.

• Freezing rain: snow melts to rain, then only passes through a shallow cold layer, so drops stay supercooled liquid and freeze only when they touch surfaces.

Hazards and why people talk about it in the news

Freezing rain is a big deal in weather reports because even a thin layer of ice can:

• Make roads and sidewalks extremely slippery and dangerous.
• Add heavy ice to tree branches and power lines, causing them to snap.
• Disrupt travel (cars, planes, trains) and cause widespread power outages.

These ice storms often trend in winter news and online discussions because they can shut down cities, knock out power for days, and create dramatic photos of trees and streets encased in glassy ice.

TL;DR: Freezing rain starts as snow, melts into rain in a warm layer, then falls through a shallow cold layer and becomes supercooled; it freezes only when it hits cold surfaces, coating everything in ice.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.