Ice Weather: When the Ice Strikes the Vulnerable Land
Several types of icy weather hits the land. Learn more about them here…
Ice weather has been mentioned throughout previous posts and is a big part of weather. It comes every winter, causing problems and bringing something unique to some parts of the world. This post will discuss many parts of ice weather, like freezing rain and black ice. Learn more in this post.
This post is all about ice weather.
Slippery Ice Weather
Black Ice
The first section of this post will be on black ice. It is hazardous for several reasons. One reason is that the black ice is very slippery for cars, which can cause vehicles to slip off the road. Many drivers do not know what to do properly, making it even more dangerous for themselves and others. In extreme cases, pile-ups can occur, which can cause serious harm.
Another hazardous aspect of black ice is that it can be hard to see. If there is already heavy precipitation like freezing rain making it harder to see along with this clear ice on the road, people might not even know it is there until they start sliding uncontrollably.
Freezing Rain
Freezing rain is one cause of the previous section of this post, black ice, and we already talked about it in our last post. So if you missed it, click here to learn more about freezing rain. But in this post, I will give you a brief look at this phenomenon. Freezing rain happens when the ice particles in the clouds fall and melt, but then hit a cold layer of air at the surface. This layer caused the rain not completely to freeze, but it cools them so much that it freezes onto objects on the ground.
When it freezes over a wide area, it can become a problem. If people are outside when it happens, they can freeze the cold rain onto their clothes. It also freezes onto roads, cars, trees, and more. The weight of the ice onto not-so-sturdy objects like power lines and tree branches can cause them to become unstable and potentially collapse. To learn more about it, visit our post on freezing rain.
Snowstorms
Just like we discussed in the last section, freezing rain, we have also made a post about the topic of this section, snowstorms. If you want to learn more about snowstorms in-depth, click here. Snow storms are widespread and practically happen every day. The definition is exactly how it sounds, a storm that produces snow. It can be extreme, trapping people in buildings, or weak, just a little blanket over the city. There are many records within snowstorms like the highest snow drift and largest rainfall amount, but see that in our snowstorm post if you want.
Hail
Hail can be very dangerous if it is large, classified as 2 inches or larger. It can cause damage to cars, roofs, and more. Some are costly and can potentially cause billions of dollars in damage. Windshields gone by hail are not a rare sight during peak hail season. In extreme cases with giant hail, it can go through the roofs of cars and houses. If you want to learn more about hail, visit this post here to learn about large hail and here for hail records.
