Freezing rain

Also called freezing rain icon, ice glaze

Forecast icon on a weather app or a public forecast table.

Freezing rain meaning

Freezing rain, as a forecast icon, means liquid rain is expected to freeze on surfaces. Sleet and ordinary rain are different labels, even when an app groups them.

At a glance

System: Forecast icon
Used for: Rain expected to freeze on surfaces
Not the same as: Sleet, snow, or plain rain

A forecast icon for rain that freezes on contact. Not sleet, and not ordinary rain.

The name. Freezing rain is a WWIS label of its own. Apple’s guide then groups it with sleet and wintry mix.

Download drawing

Where it comes from

The WWIS table includes freezing rain as its own label, separate from rain, from drizzle, and from sleet. The Met Office lists sleet icons and does not hand them this page’s job. Apple’s iPhone guide puts freezing rain, sleet, and wintry mix on one icon line. That sentence is Apple’s grouping. It is why the three words get confused, and it is not a reason to merge the pages.

The line drawing is original to this cabinet. It is not an agency logo, a vendor icon, or the emoji for the same idea.

Weather

What it means

The drops are still liquid when they fall. They freeze when they meet a cold surface, which is how glaze forms. The icon is a warning about surfaces as much as about the sky. It does not mean the rain is already ice pellets, and it does not mean snow. Where a station reports freezing rain, that report is an observing code, not this picture.

Variants

Apple’s group

Freezing rain, sleet, and wintry mix share an Apple icon. Open the sleet page for the word that will not sit still across English. Open this one when the forecast means rain that freezes on contact.