Freezing rain is the name given to rain that falls when surface temperatures are below freezing. Unlike sleet, a mixture of rain and snow, ice pellets, or hail, freezing rain is made entirely of liquid droplets.
If the temperature is above freezing below the cloud bottom to the ground, the frozen particles melt into liquid droplets that reach the surface and this is called rain. Ice storms occur when precipitation particles melt and then fall through a layer of subfreezing air near the ground.