Thundersnow, With Sounds of Thunder During Snowstorm, Startles Residents

NORTH FORK, NY — Thunder during a snowstorm? Residents took to social media Thursday morning, many surprised to report they'd heard what they thought at first might be a plow but, instead, turned out to be a loud rumble of thunder across the area.

The sound, experts explained was, indeed, thunder — or thundersnow, a relatively rare occurrence in the Northeast.

According to Pete Wichrowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Upton, what happens during "thundersnow" is the same thing that transpires during a regular thunderstorm.

However, what makes the thundersnow significant on Thursday, he said, is that it signals the "potential for really heavy snow. When you see the lightning flash and hear thunder, just as you would in a thunderstorm during the warm season, it's an indication of a really powerful system, with heavy snow."

That held true Thursday morning, Wichrowski said, as snow pummeled Long Island, falling at a rate of two to three inches per hour.

"Winter storms can become so strong that lightning develops in the billowing winter storm clouds. The winter version of the thunderstorm is called 'thundersnow.' Thundersnow lightning develops the same way as summertime thunderstorms. Ice crystals collide and shatter, and this creates positively and negatively charged particles. The charged particles gather in groups, especially at the base of the thunderstorm, and feel around toward the ground for a place to strike, usually a tall object with an opposing charge," the NOAA website states.

According to a report by ABC News, thundersnow is so rare that only .07 percent of snowstorms are associated with thunder.

Patrick Market, an associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri, said that only half a dozen to a dozen thundersnow events take place in the eastern two-thirds of the country each year, the ABC News report added.

While a total accumulation of 19 inches is possible Thursday on Long Island, Wichrowski said rain that held on Thursday morning may mean total accumulations of around a foot of snow.

Patch courtesy photo.