Photos of 2 Inches of Freezing Rain - Updated

UPDATE: More pics added below! Reports of more than an inch of freezing rain abounded last week in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky, in fact there was one claim of 3 inches. Measuring ice on trees, branches and power lines though typically yields results nowhere near the amount of rain that has fallen. (Read below for more on why.) That said, some incredible pictures (view all) are appearing on the AccuWeather.com Photo Gallery this week (now that our amateur photographers have their power back :)). Check these shots out from lewlegacy (see all) in Paducah, KY:

These show what I can truly say is the larges ice accretion I've ever seen from freezing rain. The photos are (if you don't recognize the objects :)): Holly leaves, blades of grass, a leaf, and a car antenna. These pictures from Meschott in Calvert City, KY (see all) are equally as impressive - here there was less ice on the tops of objects but extensive icicles from the bottom. He also has a picture of a strange curly-cue icicle (which I can only assume was slowly "peeled" from the power line) and a picture of a serviceman breaking ice on power lines from a helicopter. I didn't even know they did that! As he says, this guy doesn't get paid enough!

Why don't we really see an inch of ice on branches after it's rained an inch and it's 25 degrees? This is because a good portion of the rain runs off before it freezes. Gravity is a very powerful force and temperatures that would truly "flash-freeze" rain to an object don't occur in meteorology. Reports of how much freezing rain is on a branch or power line often are mis-measured by taking the diameter of all the ice (with the wire/branch in the middle), while true ice accumulation is measured from the top of the object to the top of the ice. So you might have an inch of ice surrounding a branch that is 1.5 inches thick but your ice accumulation is only half an inch.

The Associated Press also had some humdingers: