Freezing rain is the name given to
rain that falls when surface temperatures are below
freezing. Unlike
a mixture of rain and snow,
ice pellets (both of which are sometimes called "sleet"), or
hail, freezing rain is made entirely of liquid droplets. The raindrops become
supercooled while passing through a sub-freezing layer of air hundreds of meters above the ground, and then
freeze upon impact with any surface they encounter. The resulting ice, called
glaze, can accumulate to a thickness of several centimeters. The
METAR code for freezing rain is
FZRA.