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
