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I'm in Pleasant Grove and we have about 1" of snow on the ground. We have also had lightning and thunder. I didn't think it could lightning and thunder during a snow storm. What's up?
Cathy S.
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Awesome! You were seeing Thundersnow, it doesn't happen that often but when it does it is an incredible site. Thundersnow forms the same way thunderstorms do. With summertime thunderstorms you need warm air at the surface and cold air aloft (higher up). In the winter you get cool air at the surface and super cold air higher up. This creates instability and a thunderstorm. The air happens to be cold enough so your precipitation type ends up being snow.
In a thunderstorm you get intense downpours, in a thundersnow storm you get very heavy snow bursts. Some thundersnows have been known to put down 4 inches of snow in one hour! Dave Schultz, a meteorologist with NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has studied thunderstorm and estimates that only .07 percent of snow storms have thunder.
There's a few areas of the country where thundersnow happens a bit more often, Utah isn't one of them. It's more common in the midwestern states and along the Great Lakes.
All thunderstorms are dangerous even ones with snow in them. Lightning is a deadly force and just like with summertime storms it can strike the ground or a person.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
