What is the difference between rain, sleet, and freezing rain?
Quick Answer: Rain is liquid water falling from clouds. Sleet is small ice pellets that bounce on impact. Freezing rain is liquid rain that freezes on contact with cold surfaces, creating a glaze of ice.
All three start as snow or ice high in the atmosphere, but the temperature changes as they fall cause the differences.
Rain stays liquid because it falls through warm air. Sleet forms when rain refreezes into ice pellets before hitting the ground. Freezing rain happens when rain stays liquid until it touches something below freezing, then it instantly freezes.