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
Hail spike Hail spike A hail spike or three body scatter spike (TBSS) is an artifact on a weather radar display indicative of large hail. They are identified by a spike of weak reflectivity echoes that extend out from a thunderstorm, and away from the radar site. Generally known as hail spikes, these are the result of energy from the radar hitting hail, or very heavy rain, and being reflected to the ground, where they reflect back to the hail and then to the radar as in the image on the left. This results in the radar picking up the energy from