What's the Difference Between Snow, Sleet, and Freezing Rain?

Yesterday it started to sleet during my daughters' skiing lessons. They didn't mind and kept right on skiing. But I heard a lot of other parents saying things like, "what the heck? why isn't this snow? it's cold enough to be snow!" As an amateur meteorologist I knew the answer was that while the temperature at ground level was cold enough for snow, the atmosphere above us wasn't cold enough to create snow. As a parent who didn't want to be "that guy" in the group, I just sipped my coffee with the other parents standing in the sleet. If you're curious about the answer, I have a couple of quick video explanations for you to watch.

The following videos explain the conditions that create freezing rain, sleet, and snow. 

Freezing Rain Explained is a video from the Weather Channel. The video includes a demonstration that science teachers could recreate with dry ice in their science labs. 

The Difference Between Snow, Sleet, and Freezing Rain is a video from a news channel in my hometown. This video not only does a good job of explaining the differences, it's also a good model for using some simple green screen effects to create an explanatory video.



Speaking of green screen effects, my ebook 50 Tech Tuesday Tips includes ideas and tutorials for creating green screen videos. Get your copy right here!