There may be little warning either, as precipitation at the surface maybe reported as rain (RA), drizzle (DZ), freezing rain (FZRA), freezing drizzle (FZDZ), ice pellets (PL), or unknown precipitation (UP), but never snow (SN).
Depending on where you are located at the surface along this cross section, you may experience SN, PL, FZRA or RA.
As you move from the cold side to the warm side, precipitation type changes from SN to PL to FZRA to RA.