Precipitation patterns are complex and diverse and are a common feature of cold rain and snow, which can be confused whenever they appear together. While both freezing rain and snow are winter precipitation, formation processes and patterns vary。
Snow is a fragrance crystal of water vapour in high-altitude clouds, and when it falls to the ground it is a loose solid
Frozen rain is an overcooled droplet with temperatures below 0°c when it falls from high air, and when it comes to objects such as wires, branches, floors, etc., it freezes immediately into smooth ice formation, causing electrical grids to overwhelm, road ice, etc。
In terms of freezing, it is also argued that only temperatures below 0°c are frozen, which is a common cognitive deviation。
Deputy chief executive officer of the national early warning information dissemination centre the surface temperature of an object is affected by multiple factors such as radiation cooling, wind cooling effects and the material of the object, which often differ from the temperature. For example, in freezing rain weather, near-ground temperatures may be above 0°c, but objects such as roads, bridges, electrical wires are affected by radiation cooling and surface temperatures may fall below 0°c. At this point, cold drops freeze immediately to ice on the surface of these objects。
In addition, low-temperature, snow and ice-freeze disasters are not a single weather phenomenon, but rather complex disasters, such as weather surges, low temperatures, rain and snow, and freezing. Its destructive power stems from the confluence of “low temperatures” and “rain snow”, the formation of snow and ice that tend to last long, the delayed and cumulative impact on infrastructure and the more complex chain of disaster impacts. Electricity, communications, transport, agriculture and livestock, as well as human health, are all affected by cold and cold rain. The national cryogenic and snow-freeze disaster contingency plan, introduced in our country at the end of 2025, provides institutional safeguards for the scientific response。
