[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 09, 2006).]
 

Was it a dry, powdery snow?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 09, 2006).]
 

Norma
 

[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited February 09, 2006).]
 

But that doesn't mean taht it doesn't happen!
 

Anyone know any legends (Native American or otherwise) or anything about lightning in the snow?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 10, 2006).]
 

quote:

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I don't believe there is any scientific name for lightning and thunder during a snowstorm. That does happen occasionally in the wintertime, and those events usually produce brief bursts of very heavy snow. These storms are usually caused by a strong surge of warm moist air flowing over a dome of cold air at the surface. Thunderstorms may develop, but temperatures are such that the precipitation remains all snow as it falls to the ground.

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An ice age might have a hard time producing warm, moist air, though it might if you have the right geography and circumstances. Specifically, you'd probably need a large body of water to the west, a few warm days, and a sudden storm north of your location drifting south. (In the Northern Hemisphere, anyway. Reverse for the Southern, where they turn clockwise.) You'd also need an inversion (cold air lower, warm air higher), which happen most frequenly in valleys, though not always. Mountains to the east would help drive the warm air up. Remember that the storm clouds would be rolly- and patchy-looking - electrical storms are generally created by strong updrafts and downdrafts: great cycles of vertical wind in the clouds that make the undersides look like a roiling sea.

Yeah, my dad is a meteorologist. Any real meteorologists will please correct me if I'm wrong.

It'd be quite a spectacle, especially at night. I imagine a burst of lightning flashing on the blue mountains to the east, momentarily lighting the ground all around you and throwing every snowflake into sharp relief. Cool stuff.

[This message has been edited by trousercuit (edited February 10, 2006).]
 

(It is not critical to the story but I'm interested )

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 10, 2006).]
 

I'd say you could probably have snowy thunderstorms, most likely on the west coast. (East coast isn't likely, as land generally produces colder air than sea, and systems on Earth generally move west-to-east.) You could get a moist body of air over a calm sea, and then have a quick storm rush in from the north, bringing a cold front and then washing the moist air from the sea over the top of it. Again, having high terrain on the east side would help.

I suppose any wet-warm-over-stormy-cold situation could do it under the right circumstances (which, of course, you get to invent). I'm probably just talking out of my rear end, though.
 

It looks and sounds a little different from an ordinary thunderstorm. Because the air is filled with snowflakes you cannot see the lightning bolts clearly. If the lightning is far away the horizon lights up from an indeterminate direction. If it is close by, it seems like a camera flash all around you. Then the thunder is muffled by the snow. You hear an initial thud, and the reverberations die off very quickly.

[This message has been edited by Doc Brown (edited February 10, 2006).]
 

The particulars of storms are too complex to calculate based on a handful of theory, though. tc's meteorology sounds okay to me, so you're probably safer following that.

And what the heck is wrong with my 'P' key?
 

Of course, being October, the leaves were still on many of the trees allowing them to hold more snow than the wintry skeletal trees and about half of the trees were taken down by wind and snow.

edit:corrected date

[This message has been edited by pantros (edited February 10, 2006).]
 

here is a useful URL

http://www.theindependent.com/Archive/032399/stories/032399/New_spring23.html

[This message has been edited by pantros (edited February 10, 2006).]