Freezing rain can never "see" directly freezing rain, rain or snow on weather radars, Doppler or conventional. However, it is possible to estimate the area covered by freezing rain with radars indirectly. The intensity of the radar echoes (reflectivity) is proportional to the form (water or ice) of the precipitation and its diameter. In fact, rain has much stronger reflective power than snow but its diameter is much smaller. So the reflectivity of rain coming from melted snow is only slightly higher. However, in the layer where the snow is melting, the wet flakes still have a large diameter and are coated
Backscatter diameter of the target multiplied by its inherent reflective properties, provided the wavelength is larger than the particle diameter (Rayleigh scattering). Water is almost 4 times more reflective than ice but droplets are much smaller than snow flakes or hail stones. So the backscattering is dependent on a mix of these two factors. The strongest backscatter comes from hail and large graupel (solid ice) due to their sizes, but non-Rayleigh (Mie scattering) effects can confuse interpretation. Another strong return is from melting snow or wet sleet, as they combine size and water reflectivity. They often show up as much higher