The mighty burrower that brought heavy snow to the northeast today has brought thunderstorm snow—when thunder and lightning happens during a blizzard—to New York and New Jersey. Snowfall is a strange phenomenon in which heavy rain, usually associated with a thunderstorm, falls as snow. Also known as a thunderstorm blizzard, it is a type of thunderstorm and thunderstorm in which snow falls instead of rain.
Thundersnow is a thunderstorm in which the main precipitation form is snow instead of rain. Thundersnow storms occur in cold areas where the liquid in the clouds freezes before it begins to fall. If the precipitation freezes as it falls, then it becomes sleet.
However, when thunderstorms form in winter conditions, they can sometimes result in heavy snow instead of regular rain. Snowfall is rare because the temperature of the ground must be warmer than the clouds, warm enough to hold enough moisture, but cold enough that the water freezes in the snow. Snowfall is rare because the conditions under which snow forms tend to have a stabilizing effect on the atmosphere.
The Conditions for Thundersnow
Conditions that lead to snowfall can also lead to dangerously low temperatures and poor visibility due to snow showers. Snowfall — thunder and lightning that occurs during a snowstorm — most often occurs in late winter or early spring, when a lot of cold air meets most of the warm air near the ground. Snowfall occurs when the air closest to the ground is warm enough to rise and form a thunderstorm, but still cool enough to turn into snow.
A thunderstorm occurs during a thunderstorm when it is snowing instead of raining. The obvious difference between a typical thunderstorm and snowfall is that a thunderstorm causes rain, while a thunderstorm is associated with snow. It is obvious that an ordinary thunderstorm is associated with rain, and a thunderstorm is associated with snow.
Thunderbolt usually appears white or gold rather than usually blue or purple. However, under certain unique conditions, lightning and thunder can form during thunderstorms, causing snow and hail to fall, resulting in what forecasters call thunderstorm snow.
Thunderstorms usually form when warm air near the ground rises (because it is less dense than nearby cold air masses). During the summer, air pockets rise vertically, causing thunderstorms. Thunder is caused by the rapid expansion of air heated by lightning. Thunder and lightning are more common during warm storms due to convection (the upward movement of air that causes thunderstorms).
The Meteorology of Thundersnow
When there is strong enough convection, along with a lot of humidity, a winter storm can trigger a snowstorm. A typical thunderstorm at the edge of a hot or cold front can bring in cold air, turning rain into freezing rain or snow. Thunderstorm snow occurs against the background of a thunderstorm system, where cold air is drawn in like a vacuum from the north. Snow, when it falls, usually stabilizes the atmosphere, so there isn’t enough convection to trigger lightning.
Instead of the high clouds of a normal thunderstorm, thunderstorm snow is formed from flat snow clouds that become unstable and undergo dynamic lift. Thunderstorm snow typically forms when flat layers of snow clouds become unstable and dynamically lift. Thunderstorm events can often be accompanied by significant snowfall, as the conditions that lead to snowfall also tend to condense large numbers of snowflakes into the flat, shallow cloud below the turrets. Often, thunderstorms produce heavy snowfall in the range of 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm) per hour.
Snow muffles the sound, so thunder and thunder rumbles sound soft and don’t travel as far as they would in clear or rainy skies. Often the sound of thunder is drowned out by falling snow, so it can be difficult to detect unless lightning is observed. Unfortunately, you are unlikely to see lightning during a snow storm. Secondly, in most cases, it is impossible to see lightning around thunder because, unlike summer thunderstorms, the sky is bright and white.
Where Thundersnow Is Likely to Occur
The British Isles and other parts of northwestern Europe occasionally report thunder and lightning during sleet or (usually sleet) snow showers during winter and spring. Snowfall, a thunderstorm that causes snow rather than rain, is occasionally reported during winter thunderstorms throughout the country and in other countries.
Snowfall is a phenomenon that most meteorologists consider spectacular due to its rarity. It’s rare, but it’s not a myth: thunderstorms are a legal weather phenomenon.
Thunderous snow, as seen in two videos below starring The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantor, is exactly what it sounds like: a blizzard of lightning and thunder, like a thunderstorm. Also known as thunderstorms or winter thunderstorms, snowfall only occurs when a rare set of conditions are met. Snowfall occurs where lake-effect snowstorms occur, or where cold weather favors thunder and lightning, such as the Great Lakes and parts of Canada.
Thunderstorms also occur in Halifax, Nova Scotia and the northeastern United States, particularly New England and New York, sometimes multiple times during the winter.
According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, lake-effect blizzards sometimes see storm snow downstream of the Great Salt Lake and the Great Lakes during blizzards. Snowfall occurs when thunder and lightning can be heard or seen when it is snowing outside. A thunderstorm, also known as a winter storm or thunderstorm, is an uncommon type of thunderstorm in which snow falls instead of rain as the main precipitation.
Accounts of Thundersnow in Recent Years
Snowfall is more common in the Great Lakes region when cold air blows through the relatively soft water of the Great Lakes, lifting the air up fast enough that instability causes lightning and thunder along with heavy snow. This hot air not only causes lake-like snowfall, where several centimeters can fall in an hour, but it can also cause thunderstorms. However, when a blizzard is created by lake-effect snow, clouds form as the air moves over the warm lake.
Snow contained in a thunderstorm muffles the sound of thunder during a thunderstorm. The light, fluffy snow acts as a sound dampener and often dampens the echoes of thunder.
Thunderstorms, while relatively rare elsewhere, are more common in lake-effect snow in the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the U.S. Midwest, Oklahoma, and the Great Salt Lake. Thunderstorms with sleet, freezing rain or hail instead of snow are possible along the coast.
In general, a snowstorm is no more dangerous than a typical winter thunderstorm or storm. While thunderstorm snowfall is a fascinating phenomenon, at the end of the day it is associated with lightning and is just as dangerous as any other lightning you might see during a rain storm. A thunderstorm requires the same general conditions as a normal thunderstorm.
Also, thunderstorms do not usually form on the warm side of large spiral cyclones, as thunderstorms usually do. Instead, they develop in a strange place: the cooler back of a thunderstorm system.