Aurora, CO Thundersnow

[Travis W Speakman]

Or shall I say thunder-graupel. I was out about 3:45pm on the 18th and was caught in a graupel and lightning storm! The lightning was pretty frequent and very isolated in nature, moving less than a mile down the road and the storm intensity was much less. Once I got home and was able to look at the radar, there was a pretty distinct squall line with some 38-43DBz returns. I read somewhere once that thundersnow was extremely rare in the US, but searching the forum found quite a few hits regarding it. I just thought it was interesting as this is the second time I've seen it in under a year.

 

[Maggie Kahman]

Its doing that as we speak here in Hastings, NE. Only the second time iv seen it happen, the first was several years ago.

 

[Michael Carlson]

I should have saved off some radar grabs off GR Level 3. There were a few lightning indicators that showed up as the snow band passed over Aurora, Colo.

 

[Dann Cianca]

Saving the day, radar grab at the bottom of this blog post:

http://blog.bigskyconvection.com/2008/12/nature-is-gona-get-ya.html