NASA on Thundersnow
Posted by
Tim_NC on 3/4/2011, 1:38 pm
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/24feb_thundersnow/
That scientist in Alabama really was lucky; hard-core thundersnow is rare as heck. In my near 50 years of Maryland winters I've only experienced two good thundersnowstorms.
The first was in the 1970s while driving along the mountain ridges on Skyline Drive (Virginia actually.) It was spring time and out of the blue a ferocious thundersnowstorm struck. The lighting and thunder was like an artillery barrage as wind-driven snow fell furiously. Before I could reach the nearest exit, my car (and everyone else's) became paralyzed by snow drifts.
The second time was the March 1993 Superstorm when I lived in Germantown, Md. Probably accompanied by a gravity wave, the heavy snow began mixing with torrents of sleet while tall bare trees began swaying as if in a hurricane. Repeated lightning strikes amazed us. (I have this one on 8mm video but never converted it to another format - so it sits dormant in a drawer.)
Being the first event was a localized mountain-effect freak, it shows just how rare serious thundersnow is in populated areas. (I should note there is also something akin to a thundersnowshower; that is, a strong snowstorm that generates one or two small thunder events, but just as in summertime, those are nothing compared to the real thing.)
Seeing Jim Cantore's response was simply classic. I did the same.
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