By Jesse Wood
Feb. 18, 2015. Both RaysWeather.com and the National Weather Service’s Blacksburg, Va., office noted that thundersnow is possible across the region on Wednesday afternoon.
Thundersnow is a rare event where lightning and thunder occur during a snowstorm. The Weather Channel described how and why thundersnow happens:
“When the unstable layer develops where the temperature is about -10 to -20 degrees Celsius (+14 to -4 degrees Fahrenheit), conditions are favorable for both snowflakes and small hailstones (called graupel) to form. As these different particles interact, electrical charges can develop.”
This past week thundersnow made national headlines when The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore “geeked out” on air in Boston when six thundersnow lighting strikes occurred within a few minutes.
After the fourth stike, Cantore yelled at the camera: “You can take your $500 million jackpot in Powerball or whatever the heck it was, but I’ll take this baby! Four, four lightning strikes! Four, fourepisodes of thundersnow!”
See the video above.