Comments on: Thundersnow

By: Art

Art — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:15:00 +0000

Heard it (and saw it) from here (southampton)

By: miasm

miasm — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 21:01:00 +0000

The idle small-talk of the not-to-distant future will surely be full of phrases like ‘thunder snow’ and ‘cryoclastic hailstorm’.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:54:00 +0000

Whoo, thundersnow! I’ve experienced that twice in my life: October 1997 and just this winter. The first time has gone down in the history of Omaha, Nebraska not for the depth of the snow or the fierceness of the wind, but for the way we were completely unprepared. Weather forecasters failed spectacularly, trees still had leaves, which the snow clung to, destroying trees with sheer weight, and the public power district’s then-new outage reporting system failed from the overload. The kids in elementary school got a week’s worth of snowdays.

Have fun, New York!

By: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:33:00 +0000

I drove into thundersnow on the interstate even though it had been almost 50 degrees a couple mile up the road.

Visibility dropped to about 60 feet, the road vanished, and the windshield wipers got stuck. I hung my head out the window to see as I crept to a rest area a couple hundred yards away. I wondered why my headlights seemed so dim, and when I stopped I discovered they had an inch of ice and snow stuck to the headlights.

By: spejic

spejic — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:41:00 +0000

Sound of the drums
Beatin’ in my heart
The thunder of guns
Tore me apart.
You’ve been – Thundersnowed!

By: kringlebertfistyebuns

kringlebertfistyebuns — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:02:00 +0000

All’s I can say is you must’ve been asking the wrong weatherfolk. Thundersnow isn’t an uncommon occurrence.

I will say that in my encounters with the phenomenon I don’t recall much in the way of actual blizzard conditions (i.e. high winds and heavy snow). You just get a ton of snow – heavy, wet snow typically.

By: david steinmuller

david steinmuller — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 15:38:00 +0000

We usually get at least one a winter in Cleveland. The first time my wife saw it she was so frightened that she was ready to cry.

By: Andrew McKay

Andrew McKay — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:54:00 +0000

It’s not super common, but we get lightning and thunder in blizzards every few years in Winnipeg. Considering how dry the air gets and friction in the air with the wind. I’m often surprised there isn’t more!

As for sound in the cold. The colder the air, the better sound travels. In the summer there is no way I can hear the planes on the ground at the airport (I live 5 miles away). On a crisp -40C night you can hear them spool up their engines on the while taxiing if you’re paying attention.

By: Rich Keller

Rich Keller — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:45:00 +0000

My wife raised the same question about the wind speed. I just presumed that hipsters in Brooklyn were behind it for some reason.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 13:51:00 +0000

But they do have it in Minecraft, so why is this a big deal?

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 13:46:00 +0000

This happens from time to time in NC as well. As for the thunder it is usually that low rumbling kind that builds and builds like its rolling across the ground.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 13:21:00 +0000

I’ve experienced thundersnow here in Indiana. It’s pretty disorienting the first time you experience it, since, you know…lightning…thunder! But, freezing cold! And snow!

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 12:39:00 +0000

Thank you! Amen! So say we all!

Next on boingboing: a video of a pug outside, walking around unimpeded by 4 cm of powder snow on the ground – Video title: Snow-pocalypse!

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 12:35:00 +0000

Um, the sound of thunder (assuming it was thunder – might be power lines being grounded by the snow) was very likely muffled by the snow, not the cold air. I’ve found that in cold, usually dry air, sound travels well.

By: ImmutableMichael

ImmutableMichael — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 11:49:00 +0000

On a flaming skeletal motorbike…

By: Petzl

Petzl — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:58:00 +0000

Not bad for a 7D. I have a 1D.

By: Rich Keller

Rich Keller — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:54:00 +0000

It could only be more metal if orcas eating great white sharks were somehow involved.

By: Scott McDaniel

Scott McDaniel — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 05:47:00 +0000

I lived in Santa Fe, NM for years and it seems like we’d have one or two good Thundersnows a year. The best I saw was a storm that settled in late afternoon, right after Thankgiving. It started snowing normally for a while, then just as the sun set it really began coming down and the size of the flakes got huge. It was so thick in the air that you really couldn’t see more than maybe 100yards or so as the sun dropped behind the mountains. Right then it started to lightning and it would literally light the sky, bright, actinic blue from horizon to horizon. When the thunder rolled, it wasn’t like a sharp crack but instead a very muted rumble that seemed to go on and on.
That’s one of the things that I find truly magical about that part of the world.

By: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 05:31:00 +0000

I’ve seen thunder snow a couple times and it should always be considered extremely dangerous. Because of the strong cold downdrafts associated with thunderstorms, white-out conditions can develop within minutes even though the temperature was 48 degrees just a few minutes earlier. Thunder snow may bring 3 to 9 inches of wet snow per hour

Residents of the DC area may remember the Valentines blizzard of 1983

February 11-12, 1983: The Blizzard of 1983 beat the Presidents’ Day Storm and was the second greatest snowfall for Baltimore since records began. It covered an unusually large area of Virginia and Maryland with more than a foot of snow. Two feet of snow lay in a band across Washinton, Frederick, Montgomery, Carroll, Howard and Baltimore Counties. The storm set a new 24 hour snowfall record at Baltimore with 22.8 inches. Parts of Northern Virginia up into western Maryland measured as much as 30 inches on the ground. Hagerstown reported 25 inches of snow (its second greatest storm behind the January 1996 snowstorm). For a couple hours of the storm, snow fall at an amazing rate of 3.5 inches per hour. Thunderstorms intensified the snowfall in some areas.Winds gusted over 25 mph all day on February 11 causing drifts up to five feet. The heavy snow and winds paralyzed the region. The cost of clearing the snow from roads was in the millions of dollars.

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 04:53:00 +0000

Boing Boing made my day! I’ve been asking weathermen about the possibility of thunderblizzards for 30 years without getting a straight answer.

By: Kirby_G

Kirby_G — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 03:10:00 +0000

Looks like a plain old snowstorm not a blizzard. Blizzards have winds over 35 mph for over 3 hours.

SOURCE: I’m from Winnipeg. Don’t tell me that’s a blizzard.

By: eldritch

eldritch — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 03:06:00 +0000

Now I’m eager to see photos of thundersnow over an active volcano.

By: Nylund

Nylund — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 02:49:00 +0000

I just experienced this for the first time here in Dallas a few weeks back. I didn’t know thunder and lightening could accompany snow until then. It was weird.

By: eldritch

eldritch — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 02:06:00 +0000

Wow. I’m not sure whether it’s the quality of the microphone, or if the thunder was actually muffled somehow by the cold air and the atmospheric acoustics. I’m used to deep, heavy, crackling, rolling, sub-tropical thunder. This sounds surreal and wrong to my ears.

By: Stephan J. Müller

Stephan J. Müller — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 02:01:00 +0000

Damn… now my 430EX II feels ridiculous :-(

By: Doctor Device

Doctor Device — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 01:59:00 +0000

to quote Lewis Black: “They didn’t have weather like that in THE BIBLE!”