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I am wondering why there is lightning in thunderstorms but not in snow storms?
Thanks,
Carrie-Kamas, UT
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Lightning which we mostly associate with other storms not in the wintertime can and does happen during snow storms. It doesn't happen all the time but it's called "thundersnow" and it's nasty. Just like a thunderstorm with heavy rain, a thundersnow storm brings incredible snow totals, some as heavy as 4 inches in only an hours' time!
To get thunderstorms we need warm and moist air. With thundersnow storms you need instability, the cold air in snow storms is typically more stable, thus, we don't get thundersnow all that often. Regular thunderstorms have lightning that forms from the different electrical charges. Because in the winter, our storms don't have as much warm and moist unstable air, we just don't have as many storms, but when they do develop we can see lightning with them, and if it's cold enough, it could snow.
Regular snow storms (not individual cells) can be just big masses of clouds and snow. These can form from cold air and can be squally along a boundary like a front or just a big blob on the radar screen like an area of low pressure. They aren't individual cells like thunderstorms and don't have that moist unstable air, so you just don't get the lightning we see with thunderstorms.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
