the.com/sleet
rain that froze halfway and decided to ruin your commute out of spite
means a wintry mix of rain and partly frozen precipitation — ice pellets or snow melted into a cold, slushy mess that falls between rain and snow.
from From Middle English 'slete,' likely from an Old English root and related to similar words in other Germanic tongues — Middle High German 'slōz' (hailstone) and dialectal German 'Schlosse' are often cited as cousins. The deeper origin is uncertain, but the family seems to gather around the idea of small, hard, falling bits of ice.
- the formation
- rain refreezes passing through cold air near ground
- vs hail
- hail forms in storms; sleet is winter's specialty
- the sound
- that tic-tic-tic against windows is ice pellets
- road menace
- causes black ice, the invisible driving nightmare
- old word
- comes from Middle English meaning snow or hail
for instance
february 2021 texas freeze — ice storm with freezing rain and sleet that crippled texas power grid, leaving millions without electricity