FYI - Glaze Ice

[Bill O]

For the record, THIS is what a healthy dose of glaze looks like:



Anybody using the crowbar this morning was merely warming it up for some real ice sometime next month.

[Brad]

What is the difference between glaze ice and rime ice?

[Knapper]

What is the difference between glaze ice and rime ice?

The difference between the two primarily lies in opacity. The more clear the icing is, we define it as glaze icing and if appears whiter, we call it as rime ice. It is completely observer descretion but working here long enough, it become vary easy to destinguish the two apart. But, other characteristics are the feather shape, the temperatures occuring, the location it is forming, and the weather that might be causing it. This time of year as temperaturs make the balance between freezing and thawing, it is not uncommon to get both occuring at the same time in different locations. Wind blown areas transporting slightly warmer air up from the valleys below might be causing glaze icing on exposed areas while wind protected areas are forming rime.

[Bill O]

For the most basic comparison I'd say that glaze is like an ice cube and rime is like the frost in an old freezer.

As mentioned in the web comments, glaze is more common closer to freezing but I've seen it in the low 20s with winds out of the southeast.