Thursday, February 18, 7AM
I briefly mentioned in the last update that if the snow changed to sleet faster than expected then snow totals would be significantly reduced, but for most of us, 3 – 6″ of snow has become 3 to 6 flakes. A pesky warm layer is just above the surface and that caused most of us to start as sleet, though I’ve read reports near Frederick of several inches of snow. Unfortunately, if you don’t have snow now, that likely means that you are going to be dealing with sleet and freezing rain for most of the day. I did not expect any freezing rain this morning which may not bode well for the remainder of the day. I’d much rather have sleet because sleet can’t accumulate on power lines. Freezing rain sucks. Regardless, surface temperatures will likely stay well below freezing today so avoid travel if possible.
It looks like there will be a lull in precipitation well afternoon, but another round of precip is possible tomorrow. I’ll try to get that one right in a later update.
The Weather Mill 
Hello! Thank you for your informative updates and analysis. Can you help me understand the difference between hail, freezing rain, and sleet?
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Here’s a link that might help you understand freezing rain and sleet. https://www.weather.gov/rnk/Measure_Icing
If you think of the air above the surface as a Smith Island cake with lots and lots of layers, and imagine that one of those layers is above freezing. Snow falls, hits the warm layer and melts. If there is enough cold air below that layer, the water droplet freezes and it’s sleet. If the layer below that is below freezing is not deep enough, the droplet doesn’t have time to freeze and lands as liquid but freezes on contact…freezing rain. Hail is thunderstorm event. A rain drop gets pulled up and down in high cloud tops and freezes, drops and gets wet, then up and freezes, and down… over and over until the winds aloft can’t support it any longer and it falls as hail. That’s why the cross-section of hail can have “rings” like a tree. It goes up and down and grows bigger and bigger. It’s pretty crazy to think about how much has to be going on in the highest clouds to support huge hail stones with letting them fall. Great question!
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Thank you for the explanation and resources. The visual comparison was especially helpful (and made me want smith island cake ; p). I didn’t realize that everything falling from the clouds is “frozen precipitation”?!
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