Widely reported thundersnow events?

[AlexG595]

I was reading on the wikipedia for January 1895 and read about a widespread thundersnow event on the 23rd due to a mild air incursion, I wonder if any other examples of this has happened on a wide scale.

[Weather-history]

 AlexG595

 

[Summer8906]

The most famous of recent years is presumably the 28 January 2004 event, with the front separating coldish Pm air with very cold arctic air. Produced a short period of heavy snow with thunder even on the south coast, enough to give a light covering. The snow was quite heavy but wet.

Another more obscure one was 22 or 23 February 1995 (I think it was the 22nd, but not totally sure) which was rather similar (coldish air in front, cold air behind).

This seems to be the common factor in thundersnow, cold front moving SE-wards with coldish Pm air ahead and very cold Am air behind. I've never known an instance where a very sharp cold front separates very mild Tm air and very cold Am air, for example. If we did get that, I suspect it could be quite spectacular!

Edited September 21 by Summer8906

[AlexG595]

 Summer8906 This is such a cool note and explanation, honestly I was curious on these as I had seen reports of thundersnow from usual strong easterly patterns but I was curious on if any specific setups could be identified too! Thanks for the input

 Weather-history Thanks very much for the reference to your post, informative as always

[SummerShower]

 Summer8906 I remember the 22 February 1995 event. The afternoon was typical pre-cold front weather associated with an atlantic low I.e. wet and windy with strong southerlies.  What I wasn't expecting was to see distant lightning to the w and then all of a sudden, a sharp veer of wind to the wnw with ferocious gusts, snow that was as heavy as the 2004 event, and an actually quite decent amount of thunder.

The wind did drop out quite quickly though but it snowed for an hour or so after, still with occasional thunder and lightning.  I'm surprised this isn't as well documented as the 2004 event.

[Summer8906]

 SummerShower Yes, no-one talks about it much. I was further west (Bath) but the experience was much the same, though I got the wind directions slightly wrong by the looks of it (I'd have said something like WSW to NNW). Also I don't remember a wet and windy spell before the thundersnow, I'm sure it was bright beforehand with a rapid increase in cloud before the event.

This event did usher in much colder weather compared to the preceding few weeks, which had been very mild. Frequent winds from the NW quarter and cold Pm/Am outbreaks typified end of Feb and early March, with a lying snow event in parts of southern England on March 2nd with unusually cold WNW-lies.

Edited October 9 by Summer8906