Q: With so many different types of winter precipitation, I began wondering: How do sleet, snow, freezing rain, hail and an ice storm differ? How are they alike? Didn’t an ice storm hit Atlanta in the early 1970s one day when the Atlanta Flames played at the Omni?
— Lance DeLoach, Thomaston
A: Brad Nitz, a meteorologist with WSB-TV, provided these descriptions of types of precipitation.
- Hail: It is irregularly shaped balls of ice that form in a thunderstorm where temperatures are below freezing. The hail falls to the ground as ice despite melting slightly as temperatures warm near the earth.
- Snow: It forms as ice crystals and remains frozen as it falls to earth.
- Sleet: It forms when rain or melting snow falls from above-freezing air into below-freezing air near the ground. As it falls, the precipitation freezes into solid ice pellets.
- Freezing rain: It is formed in nearly the same way as sleet, except that if the below-freezing air isn't cold enough to freeze the precipitation as it falls, it will freeze on contact with the ground. This coats surfaces with a layer of ice.
- Ice storm: It's a storm where freezing rain accumulates.
The Flames defeated the Vancouver 5-2 on Jan. 7, 1973, the day of one of the worst ice storms in metro Atlanta history. Freezing rain and ice downed tree limbs and power lines throughout the area, leaving more than 200,000 people without electricity and heat for up to three days.
Andy Johnston wrote this column. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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