Why are Ice storms difficult to forecast?
The main reason is that you will need to forecast not only the condition needed to have an ice storm , but you also have top forecast the correct region that will have the correct layer of air that will be at or below freezing that will result in an ice storm. In order to get an ice storm, you will need to get two air masses to meet where the precipitation will start to fall as rain…or as frozen precipitation and then fall through a warm later where it will melt into rain. Then, in either case, the rain must fall through a cold below freezing layer to get this rain water super cooled, but not enough to turn it into ice until it hits a surface where the surface temperature is also below freezing. If all these conditions exist. then and only then you will likely have an ice storm. The real tricky part is that that lowest layer of below freezing cold air can not be too thick or it will just fall as sleet…or too thin and it will just be cold rain. To forecast the right location for all
