Freezing rain Freezing rain Freezing rain is the name given to rain precipitation maintained at temperatures below freezing by the ambient air mass that causes freezing on contact with surfaces. Unlike sleet, a mixture of rain and snow, 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 hundreds of meters above the ground, and then freeze upon impact with any surface they encounter, including the ground, trees, electrical wires, aircraft, and automobiles. The resulting ice, called glaze ice, can accumulate to a thickness of several centimeters and
Hail smaller area, on transport and infrastructure. Accumulated hail can also cause flooding by blocking drains, and hail can be carried in the floodwater, turning into a snow-like slush which is deposited at lower elevations. On somewhat rare occasions, a thunderstorm can become stationary or nearly so while prolifically producing hail and significant depths of accumulation do occur; this tends to happen in mountainous areas, such as the July 29, 2010 case of a foot of hail accumulation in Boulder County, Colorado. On June 5, 2015, hail up to four feet deep fell on one city block in Denver, Colorado. The