| Weather Classroom: Snow, Sleet, & Freezing RainTV3 Blog Listing | ||||
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Sometimes the temperature is 35 degrees and it snows. Other times it's 29 degrees, but rain is falling. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain all depend on the temperature of the atmosphere above us.
Freezing rain falls to the surface as liquid, and then it freezes when it makes contact with things like roads, sidewalks, and tree branches. Way up in the atmosphere, the precipitation starts out as snow. As the snow falls, it encounters a warm layer (above freezing), and that causes the snow to melt into raindrops. Then it falls to the surface, which is at or below freezing, and therefore freezes on contact.
Sleet falls to the surface as ice pellets (or frozen raindrops), and it can accumulate similar to snow. Again, the precipitation starts falling as snow. It also encounters a warm layer that causes it to melt into raindrops. However, this differs from freezing rain because the warm layer is not as deep as a freezing rain profile. So after the drop passes through a shallow warm layer, it encounters a below freezing layer and has time to refreeze into an ice pellet.
Snow is basically a bunch of ice crystals stuck together. All layers of the atmosphere should be below 32 degrees to support snowfall. Of course the colder the temperature, the more powdery the snow will be. If the air is right around or above the freezing mark, the snow will contain more water content, falling as big, wet flakes, which is the best for making snowmen.
Stay warm everyone! Counting down the days till the forecast for the Rolex 24 in Daytona!
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