News - Blogs - As an ice storm hits the South today lets explore freezing rain

As an ice storm hits the South today, let's explore freezing rain
Published: 1/15/2013 3:42 PM
Last Modified: 1/15/2013 3:45 PM

My friend in Memphis sent this to me about 3:15 p.m. Tuesday, just as the ice storm is starting to ramp up there.

Ice forms on tree branches Saturday as people walk toward the TU Reynolds Center for the men's basketball game. JAMES GIBBARD/Tulsa World

Even after living through The Great Tulsa Blizzard of 2011, I still stand by this position: I would rather have two feet of snow than an inch of ice.

That’s an easy one, especially after we all barely made it through The Great Ice Storm of 2007.

An ice storm, not of biblical proportions but nothing to ignore, is occurring now across Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. Forecasters are calling for about a half-inch of ice in places before it’s over tomorrow. The storm system will also bring snow and more wintry precipitation to the northeast.

A dear friend of mine in Memphis, Tenn., a target of today’s storm, said it’s just rain right now, but when she hung up the phone said she would go move her car out from under the giant trees around where she lives. Smart girl.

That storm is just a tiny bit of what happened here this weekend. You may still have some icicles hanging from your roof or trees after a little bit of freezing rain fell in the area on Saturday. But, at my house it was just an accumulation of millimeters, just enough for a light glaze and an excuse to stay inside.

Freezing rain is one of those precipitation types that is a bit perplexing. Snow, that’s easy. Sleet is a pain but it’s easy to recognize. But freezing rain, droplets of supercooled water that freeze when it comes into contact with a surface, is strange.

So let’s do a little physics and learn about freezing rain today!

Precipitation starts off frozen in the atmosphere. As it falls, it passes through a warmer layer that is above zero Celsius and thaws. Very near the surface, the liquid enters a layer that is below freezing but it remains liquid during the rest of its free fall. It is a supercooled liquid at this point. When the droplet reaches a surface, it then freezes instantly. Those droplets together make a glaze of ice that builds on the surface as the rain continues, further weighing down the objects on which it is collecting.

Here are several types of precipitation as it falls through the atmosphere

It’s one of the most interesting types of precipitation (aside from graupel, just because it’s supercooled water AND snow. And the name…graupel. Cool).

I can shovel snow. I can walk in it and even drive in it if I have some sand bags, good ground clearance and time. We get some substantial freezing rain and I'm out. You're on your own.

So, let's hope that whatever precipitation we get the rest of this winter is either snow or rain. Nothing in between. (haha, like we'll get any rain. Don't y'all know a drought is on?)

-- Jerry Wofford

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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