Originally Posted by
punkalouver
In all honesty, I don't think I have ever seen wet snow at a temperature of -15C.
And I have seen a lot of snow.
I would expect that dry snow was falling. The kind of snow that does not tend to stick to a cold surface.
Thats right.
Snow in general ”never” causes icing.
Wet snow will only be seen in above freezing temps:
Below frezing, its dry.
Having a crystal core, it does not supercool like water droplets that are missing some core to freeze on. As soon as it goes below frezing its frosen.
Freezing rain or drizzle maybe?
(Up here above the artic circle its bot that uncommon even in quite cold WX.)
I havent checked any taf/ metars for the place for the accident, but at low altitude freezing rain/drizzle can be a big issue.
We freezing drizzle (combined with light snow) that today at my airport, at minus 16C.
Did get calls from different directions with info
about people barely where able to drive their cars ( windscren covered woth thick frosen sleet)
METAR ESNG 261250Z 11003KT 3000 -SN FZDZ OVC004 M16/M17 Q1005=METAR ESNG 261220Z 11004KT 2100 -SN FZDZ OVC003 M16/M17 Q1006=