Freezing rain is a hydrometeorological phenomenon in which supercooled liquid raindrops fall through a shallow subfreezing layer near the surface and freeze on contact with exposed objects, producing a glaze of ice. It forms when precipitation originates as snow or ice aloft, melts into rain in a deep above-freezing layer, then becomes supercooled in a shallow below-freezing layer that is too thin for refreezing into ice pellets. The resulting accretion of clear ice significantly alters surface roughness, mass loading, and mechanical properties of infrastructure and vegetation, and is a key process in cold-season boundary-layer thermodynamics, microphysics, and impact-based forecasting.
With another wave of dangerous cold heading for the U.S. South on Friday, experts say the risk of hypothermia heightens for people in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee who are entering their sixth day trapped at home without ...
Environment
Jan 30, 2026
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Perilously cold temperatures threatened millions of Americans Monday in the wake of a sprawling winter storm that left at least 23 people dead as it knocked out power and paralyzed transportation.
Environment
Jan 26, 2026
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A severe winter storm that brought crippling freezing rain, sleet and snow to a large part of the U.S. in late January 2026 left a mess in states from New Mexico to New England. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 26, 2026
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A monster storm barreling across swaths of the United States has killed at least 10 people and prompted warnings to stay off the roads, mass flight cancellations and power outages, as freezing conditions persisted into Monday.
Environment
Jan 26, 2026
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Americans stripped supermarket shelves Friday ahead of potentially "catastrophic" winter weather that threatened at least 160 million people across the country with transportation chaos, blackouts and life-threatening cold.
Environment
Jan 24, 2026
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Warm Arctic waters and cold continental land are combining to stretch the dreaded polar vortex in a way that will send much of the United States a devastating dose of winter weather later this week with swaths of painful ...
Environment
Jan 21, 2026
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Ice formation on propeller blades or aircraft wings can cause major problems. It can limit flight time, increase costs and pose safety and environmental risks.
Nanomaterials
Sep 10, 2025
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