What's Your Most Unusual Experience With Thundersnow?

[Gene Moore]

any known photographs/vid of a tornado going over remainders of snow?

There is a good quality black and white shot of a tornado over snow that might be found in older tornado books. I think it's in the Significant Tornadoes book by Grazulis. It was taken north of Perryton TX in ....1948'ish ??

As for a snow thunderstorm experience. Going up a ski lift at Ski Apache New Mexico. A bolt came past me on its way down to the ground.....shattered a beautiful quiet scene and ride up. Also it causes one to take immediate notice of the surroundings, metal chair, metal cables.....

 

[Jason McKittrick]

My favorite thundersnow event occurred here in Omaha on October 27, 1997. We experienced thundersnow for about 6 hours we experienced snowfall rates of 2 to 3" per hour that entire time. Since the trees still had there leaves we experienced massive tree damage and power outages. At the peak about 100,000 people were without power, some people were without power for 10 days. The radar that night showed reflectivities an excess of 45 dbz.

 

[Martin North]

We had two thundersnow events here in Belfast on the evening and night of 04/05-01-08.

During darkness, it was the most electric blue lightning I ever saw. Really quite bizarre.

One of the strikes hit a substation and put 5000 homes out. We had 5 - 6 inches of snow in 6 hours.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I've recently discovered a thundersnow hotspot right in my backyard that I never knew existed - eastern Beckley, West Virginia. The airport ASOS has reported thundersnow at least once during nearly every strong upslope snow event (or strong synoptic snow) up there during the past couple of years. I had been suspicious of those obs, but I talked to one of the groundskeepers at the airport, and he confirmed that sometimes it really gets rocking up there with frequent lightning and thunder. I don't know what the exact cause is, but I suspect a local topographic feature near the airport is responsible. The locals have only heard it frequently near the airport, and when I've checked, the NLDN has only shown strikes in that small area.

I'm going to start heading up there more this winter to try to catch some - it's a lot easier than driving the 6-7 hours to Erie/Buffalo for LES.

Here is the most recent event from a couple days ago:

 

[Chris Carter]

My favorite thundersnow event occurred here in Omaha on October 27, 1997. We experienced thundersnow for about 6 hours we experienced snowfall rates of 2 to 3" per hour that entire time. Since the trees still had there leaves we experienced massive tree damage and power outages. At the peak about 100,000 people were without power, some people were without power for 10 days. The radar that night showed reflectivities an excess of 45 dbz.

I remember that, i was 13 when that happened, i remember watching Bill Randby early Friday saying that snow wasnt gonna change until sunrise Saturday and we would see around 2-3". Then i looked outside the window at 8pm at nite and seeing large snowflakes falling and i said to myself, well they got it wrong again. Woke up in the middle of the nite hearing snapping sounds, looking outside and seeing large limbs fall and flashes out light and rumbles of thunder. I was thinking to myself this is coolest thing ive ever seen!

Morning came around still snowing and i estimated a good 12" was on the ground, ran to the backyard and saw our trees and bushes torn to pieces with heavy snow and no power. Everyone was still sleep, except for me. I'll never forget it, it was the day our snowblower stopped working, and i had to shovel that wet stuff, ugh. Then the following spring I had to trim all the bushes and trees to get rid of the dead branches and what not. Still though, that storm was something else.

 

[Jason Foster]

The most unusual was likely the first time I found out it existed. I was till in Middle School, walking from one friends house to another about 1/2 mile away.

Quick, but somewhat faint flash and a hell of a clap of thunder just seconds after scaring the bejeezes out of me!

All thundersnow afterward have been mundane. I guess thunder and lightning in snow isn't that exciting to me.

 

[Brian Russ]

We have it during stronger Lake Effect Snow events in upstate NY when
there is strong lift and instability east of Lake Ontario. The Tug Hill plateau
provides the favorable conditions for it.

Usually when NWS puts it in the LES warning statements we know we're
going to get dumped on.

 

[John Farley]

Not sure how I missed this thread when it first came up, as I am a big fan of thundersnow. Probably my best would be the great St. Louis "bilzzard" (not a true blizzard but that's what the locals call it) in 1982. We went to a movie and arrived just after the rain turned to snow. It started thundering during the movie and I said that if it is still snow there will be a lot when we come out. At the end of the hour-and-a-half movie there was already 5 inches! The thunder and lightning continued for another 4 or 5 hours and the snow until late the next morning. The accumulations ranged from 14-22 inches across the STL area, with about 14 in Edwardsville. Things were pretty much shut down for 3 days.

A few years ago in Santa Fe, NM I experienced a very intense but brief thundersnow event, with 4 or 5 rapid-fire CG strikes in about 5 or 10 minutes. Dropped about 3 inches of snow in a little over an hour, but that was it. I've experienced thundersnow a number of other times in IA, MI, and CO in addition to the above-mentioned states, including a couple times while skiing. On February 8 of this year they closed the lifts due to lightning while I was at Ski Santa Fe, and that storm came in with an actual shelf cloud. You can see a few pictures of this storm at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/winter0809.htm

I also experienced a thundersnow event 8 or 10 years ago at SKI Loveland in CO which also came in with a very clear gust front and started with half-inch graupel. That will clear the slopes in a hurry. It didn't thunder until later when it had changed to ordinary snow, though.

 

[Steven Marshall]

We get thundersnow almost every year here right on Lake Erie. Last year I think it was, we actually had severe warnings on a line that came ashore....and snowing like heck.

Weirdest:
Early one morning, I was ending my overnight shift at the tv station when the lightning started. Surface temps at 19, 5000 feet, temps were in the 50s! Lake still very warm. Lightning was very bright and close to the ground. Under those conditions, the deck couldnt have been more than 750 feet. Our tv tower, right on top of the building is 800 feet. I was outside shooting the building ice storm when lightning struck the tower. Ive never seen lightning that bright before. It took me a few seconds to get my eye sight back after the first flash. It must have been darn close. Well...as I said, it was 19 degrees...and it was raining. As soon as the rain drops hit, they frooze into clear ice and this went on for about 30 minutes. Later, the station engineer showed up with a rubber mallet and went around breaking ice off of everything. By noon, the temps were in the 40s.

 

[Tyler Schiller]

The December 1987 blizzard was the best thundersnow event hands down for me! As a kid, I remember waking up numerous times with the sound of crashing thunder/frequent lightning. Just as Joel Wright mentioned, the wind was incredible as well! Since then, there have been some thundersnow events but nothing compares to the 87 blizzard.

 

[Matt Sellers]

April 17, 2009, Beulah, CO. After a night of cold rain showers and unusually strong easterly winds, a thunderstorm moved across Beulah from east to west around 0900 MDT. Precipitation began as rain/graupel... then changed to hail/graupel (max hail size of 0.5") with frequent lightning in the vicinity, then to heavy snow with thunder as the thunderstorm core moved away to the west. Mammatus appeared in the western sky after the storm passed; with the cold air and fresh snow, the mammatus seemed a bit out of place, but given the storm's intensity as it passed, its presence was not much of a surprise.

That day was truly weather potpourri in eastern Colorado - heavy snow (storm totals up to 3-5 feet west of Denver), rain, hail, and even a cold-core tornado in southeastern El Paso County near Truckton.

 

[Karla Dorman]

No question: Blizzard of '78. It had been raining steadily all day the day before the storm hit, went to bed, still raining steadily. Awakened around 3:00 a.m. to massive lightning and thunder - looked out the window, it's SNOWING. Definately made an impression on me.

Edit: forgot to mention this was in Mansfield, Ohio.