It was 40F somewhere but I doubt that it was 40F everywhere.


Looking at the report you linked to, the overnight temperature was in the teens and it appears to be winter so the ground was cold to begin with. The very surface layer of the road may have been at 40F but it would have been a thin layer of sun warmed pavement on top of a cold subsurface. You can't freeze ice on a surface above the freezing point of water at atmospheric pressures. Just isn't going to happen. The freezing rain...and that what this was...sucked what little heat in the pavement out and froze to the ground quickly. It would have also dropped the air temp rapidly because water has a higher heat capacity than air does. You'd have to provide a mechanism by which water near the freezing point could fall though a column of air, hit the ground and freeze without decreasing the temperature of the air column. That violates a couple of important thermodynamic laws which have never been violated before. Ever.