On December 18th freezing rain coated parts of the UK and Ireland in ice, producing extremely dangerous conditions.

As milder air arrived from the south-west through Sunday, precipitation transitioned from snow to freezing rain, to then rain as temperatures rose into the mid-teens.

Freezing rain is a rare type of precipitation, whereby supercooled liquid droplets freeze upon contact with a surface, coating it instantly in ice.

To become supercooled, precipitation needs to pass through a layer of air that is above freezing, melting into a liquid droplet, then falling back through a thin layer of sub-zero air nearer to the ground, allowing it to become supercooled.

Freezing rain also simultaneously occurred in Germany, where people took to the streets to ice skate in Westwald in Rhineland-Palatinate, as seen in the video above. It also happened in Italy recently too.