This article is about the weather phenomenon. There's also a book and a movie called The Ice Storm.

An ice storm is a storm of freezing rain, a form of precipitation composed of rain that turns to ice on contact with the ground. It occurs during a temperature inversion, when the air near the ground is cold (below the freezing point), but the air above it is warm enough for rain. When significant amounts of ice accumulates, the ice storm can have severe results including damaging trees, dwellings, and high-tension power lines.

Ice storms occur often in middle temperate climates where temperatures often dip below freezing, even where snow is infrequent.

Recent Ice Storms

In 1991, a severe ice storm hit the city of Rochester, New York. The ice storm put almost all residents out of power and almost all trees lost limbs.

A severe ice storm in January 1998 struck a large region of southeastern Ontario, southwestern Quebec, western New Brunswick, and upstate New York. Montreal was especially hard hit, with large areas of the island being deprived of power for a week or more, and off-island areas up to six weeks. At its darkest, the storm left 3 million people without electricity, and damage was estimated at CAD 3 billion. A third of the trees in Mount Royal Park had to be felled. Forests, in particular the economically important production of maple sugar in the region, were devastated. This storm was blamed on El Niño.

A storm deposited ice over the western half of North Carolina in December 2002. Duke Power had considerable difficulty restoring electricity across their entire service area from Asheville and Charlotte to Durham. Outages lasted a week or more in many cases. Raleigh and a smaller area to the east also experienced electrical problems but are in a different service area so had shorter outages. Falling trees also damaged other properties.

In March 2003, another ice storm struck Rochester. Though not as severe as the one in 1991, it did cause significant damage and power outages.