Until this morning I had no idea that "wintry mix" was an actual category of weather. I thought the phrase was just a catch-all for rain mixed with snow. I suppose in some sense that is true, that it really does practically function as a catch-all for the nightly news, but when I stepped out this morning and noticed that what I thought was rain was actually really tiny bits of ice (not hail, not snow, not sleet, not slush) I realized that maybe I was standing in "wintry mix". Oh the joys of all the new east coast experiences.....

Here's what Wikipedia has to say: "Wintry showers is a somewhat informal meteorological term, used primarily in the United Kingdom, to refer to various mixtures of rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow. Professional meteorologists tend to shy away from using the term under any circumstances, but radio and television weather reporters use it regularly, the same way wintry mix is used in the United States. Though no "official" criteria exist for the term, it is not used when any accumulation of snow on the ground takes place. It is often used when the temperature of the ground surface is above 0°C, preventing accumulation from occurring even if the air temperature is marginally below 0°C; but even then the falling precipitation must generally be something other than consisting exclusively of snow."