The scientific community that includes meteorologists, physicists and engineers has shown interest in a better understanding of ice accretion formation and related fundamental physics, including atmospheric conditions, surface flow dynamics, droplet trajectory and thermodynamic processes. The rates of ice mass accumulation are highly depended on microphysical factors, including the size distribution of water particles, coefficients of collision, sticking and freezing, and collision speed and angle. These factors are controlled by meteorological parameters, such as precipitation intensity, liquid water contents of cloud and fog, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction. Such knowledge was built up from field observations and measurements, laboratory studies and model development. The numerical research and prediction on the iceloads and duration of icing get the new advance continuously, and recent numerical models have been developed specifically for icicle and morphogenetic modeling. The physical processes and development of ice accretion models in the past sixty years were summarized. Finally, perspectives for future research are highlighted.