PC, the way freezing rain works here in Chicago is that the cars, ground, buildings, trees, everything outside is cold, so when the rain hits these items, it freezes instead of just running off. If it was frozen as it was coming down it would be sleet, not frozen rain. Frozen rain is actually much more damaging than snow because it's so much heavier, and because sometimes on the road it turns into black ice, which is ice that you can't see, so you don't know it's there so you don't slow down so you go flying over it at a high rate of speed, so you spin out, so you hit the car in the oncoming traffic, so you get a ride to the hospital in a nice big white boxy car with pretty red lights on it.