single word requests - Is there a term for simultaneous snow and rain?


I'm from Australia where we don't have so many kinds of precipitation. I'm familiar with these:



  • rain

  • hail

  • snow

  • sleet


As I understand it, sleet refers to frozen rain but I'm not totally familiar with it. Right now I'm not in Australia but Georgia, the former Soviet republic. And at the moment it's raining but not just rain. There's also some mushy snowflakes falling. I've never seen this before and wonder if we even have a word for it in English. Would it be referred to as sleet after all? It's 2 degrees above zero centigrade now so frozen rain seems unlikely.



Answer



Sorry, I believe the answer is "sleet":



Rain and snow mixed (also known as sleet) is precipitation composed of rain and partially melted snow. This precipitation can occur where the temperature in the lower part of the atmosphere is slightly above the freezing point (0 °C or 32 °F). Its METAR code is RASN.



Meteorologists around my geographical area (New England) refer to it as a "wintry mix" most of the time. But it's clear that "sleet" is what is meant here.


From the Wikipedia entry for rain and snow mixed.


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