Jan 7, 2009 1:12 pm US/Eastern
Sleet And Freezing Rain - What's The Difference?
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Sleet covered road in Atkinson, N.H.
Ryan Breton/WBZ
So far, this winter has featured quite a bit of ice.
A
lot of folks have been asking - "What's the difference between sleet and hail?" and "What's the difference between sleet and freezing rain?"
Here it is.
HAIL
We usually see hail in the warmer months when we get thunderstorms.
The updraft in a thunderstorm carries a ball of ice high into a storm where it grows.
Eventually, when too heavy for the updraft to support, it falls to the ground.
SLEET
Sleet is typically seen in the colder months.
As precipitation falls from the cloud, it falls as a snowflake.
On it's trip to the ground that flake travels trough a warm layer which melts it into a raindrop.
Before that drop hits the ground it travels through a deep layer of cold which freezes that drop back into a piece of ice called sleet.
FREEZING RAIN
Now, when that subfreezing layer hugs the ground and is shallow enough so that the drop traveling through doesn't freeze, it will then freeze on all surfaces as it hits the ground creating a sheet of ice.
That is called freezing rain.
Freezing rain is the most dangerous of all the precipitation types.
It can cause major tree damage and power outages similar to what we saw in the ice storm back in December.
Watch the latest forecast
As today's storm progresses, the icing threat shifts from eastern Massachusetts to central and western Massachusetts, where power outages are possible.
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