Thundersnow Reports

[Dom W]

The cold spell that the UK is having at the moment is producing snow and hail showers in the North and East of the UK and there have been on occasion some lightning in the heavy hail / snow showers. I have already witnessed a couple of times in the last few hours over my town of Peterlee in County Durham, North East England some flashes of lightning, I guess the weather does not want to be left out of the New Year celebrations with fireworks of its own, lol!

I am guessing that the thundersnow is happening due to the showers coming in from a relatively warmer North Sea.

I know that thundersnow is fairly common in the USA, particularly Lake Effect snow situations. I want to focus more on occurrence of thundersnow in the UK

Have you witnessed thundersnow in the UK?

[snow1975]

Have you witnessed thundersnow in the UK?

[SunnySouthCoast]

Yes. Happened here in Portsmouth in 2004 (I think).

[Ben_Cambs]

28th January 2004. Totally unexpected

[Thundery wintry showers]

Yes, three times:

1. 29th December 2000. Heavy snow showers in Cleadon during the early hours of the morning, and at 4:50am I was woken up by a loud bang of thunder.

2. 22nd December 2003. It wasn't snowing at the time, but a snow shower had just deposited a snow cover, and a little way out to the east, a cumulonimbus cloud lit up on a good half-dozen occasions, accompanied by distant, muffled thunder.

3. ... today. Two flashes of lightning, one vivid one to the north (proper sheet lightning), one distant one to the NW a couple of minutes later that lit the sky up.

I have also seen a wintry mix accompanied by a thunderstorm on 17 November 1995, 14 December 1999, and 8 November 2001. All of these instances have occurred while I was at Cleadon, illustrating that the Tyne & Wear coast is one of the most prone areas of the British Isles to seeing thundersnow, due to the North Sea providing the equivalent of the USA's lake effect snow. It can happen from any airflow vectored between N and ESE, provided that it is unstable enough.

[jy]

yes just the once 28 01 04 heavy rain thunder and lightning followed by strong wind and whiteout conditions truly quite an epic evening.

[Alex95]

Thundersnow is fairly common in the NE if you get an unstable flow off the North Sea. I've witnessed thundersnow in Dec 2000, Jan 2003, Feb 2004 (I was away in Jan so there could have been thunder then as well), Feb 2005, Jan 2008, Feb 2009 and now Dec 2009. That's 7 times in Newcastle since 2000, and possibly 8 if the NE got that thundersnow event in Jan 2004 when I was away.

Today I witnessed a couple of distant flashes and heard one rumble of thunder, and it was snowing at the time.

[Cookie]

yes tonight, from a distance.

and a few years ago when I was eating a meal out in a resturant and thier was a big flash of lightning looked almost blue, and the powerd dipped for a moment, was snowing heavily at the time

[JRMcLeod]

Have witnessed it only once, Feb 2006. We had 3 flashes of fork lightning during a week long snow event where we ended up with 17" of snow. Surprisingly the lightning was yellow, have never seen yellow lightning before!

I also believe Peterhead had thundersnow just the other day!

[Polarlow]

We had Thundersnow/hail in Dundee on the 30/12/09 at 0915am.

I grabbed the camera, seconds, after the flash of lightning and thunderclap, and caught the heavy shower that followed ..

at the start of the video is the snowfall from the night before 29/12/09 ...

[Lightningboy]

Ive witnessed 3 of them, Saw one last february huge bolt of lightning with loud thunder and very heavy snow.

March 2007 there was one and there was alot of thunder and lightning for about an hour with heavy snow that lasted most of the evening giving a decent covering.

There was on in 2004 aswell with more heavy snow.

[The PIT]

Only once a couple of years ago. Not one my work collegues have ever seen it though so it shows how rare the event is.

Seen it on TV though last year during a broadcast which made the people being interviewed jump.

[donna-m]

Yes I've experienced Thundersnow and never ever wish to again on 17th Dec 09

I was picking my 17yr old daughter up from her dancing group about 20 mins drive away, driving along the seafront the snow started and i couldn't hardly

see infront of me-let alone the road i then had to drive across the marshes what where nearly unpassable due to blizzard like conditions. But i managed.I

just reached a main when it started flashing blue around me, all my electrics died on my car yet the engine was still running at the same time a electric

blue went across my windscreen- my thoughts were i'd been hit, clutching to the steering wheel with dear life the lights and electric all came back on in

the car.

I finally got home after what should have been a hour round trip after two

Everyone was talking about the thundersnow as much as the snow as its something unheard of hear, and so is laying snow!!

The next day i went to go to the shops to do the last bits of xmas shopping when again all my electrics died along with my car, so my poor car ended up getting towed to the garage.

After a anxious wait the garage phoned to ask what had i done to the car !!!, The battery was fried ( all cells totally emptied) the alternator was fried, All the wires in between !!!

I don't know if thye car got struck by lightning that night or if i was in some kind of electrical field .But all i know is that i have never been so scared in my

life and so glad to get home and after 9 yrs of waiting had enough snow to build a snowman with the kids

[Tim B]

Thundersnow is quite common where I am, I usually see it at least once a year.

I saw some just before Christmas during an ice storm, was out picking up a take away and these big flashes kept lighting everything up.

[BlueHedgehog074]

Although I live a long long way from the coast, there was one day in February 2007, where I encountered a wintry shower, with a very dark looking cloud overhead.

I was at Moretan Morrel College at the time where a group of us were observing the quality of the grass/lawns. I did not really consider looking up at the sky (despite the fact I like to do it alot), because for most of the day the sky was dominated with a few cumulus clouds and perhaps the odd cumulus congestus. So I didn't think anything major would develop.

Nevertheless, just as it reached quarter to four, darkness suddenly flooded the whole area, and that was when I noticed a particularly monsterous looking cloud approaching the Campus. I thought to myself, "Uh oh, we're gonna be in for it. That's sure going to come down heavily with hail." I was pretty sure it would have been too dark for snow, even though it was rather chilly outside.

But then, it started. There was one hailstone, then two, then three, and after a minute the air was filled with... small hailstones! The kind of hail that was falling, though, was more of the softer, wintry type and it did, in a way, look very much like snow. There was no sign of anything too drastic yet, but some of the group decided to shelter under the nearby building.

After a while, the sky seemed to be becoming a little whiter and more blurred. I thought this meant that snow was following, but to my horror, I could see a patch of blue sky to the east heading this way. And so the main part of the shower was beginning to pass. I thought to myself, "That's probably going to be it now." And although throughout the whole thing there had been the odd snowflake falling with the soft hail, I could here a rumble of thunder, just as the patch of blue sky got closer.

There had been no lightning (or at least I couldn't see any), and the rumble of thunder was quiet and brief. With much clearer weather to the east, I assumed that the thunder had come from that passing shower.

I think it's fair to say that isn't really the best example of Thundersnow, but is still the closest I have ever come to it.

[Dom W]

Thank you for all your interesting reports - I hope that we get some more occurrences of thundersnow in the coming week

[tripleseis]

I've experienced thundersnow I think in winter 2004 along with my then workmates. It was that day when we were suddenly hit by snow showers and the roads went down to a crawl. Luckily I only lived a short walk away from my place of work (in Oxford) but one poor girl I worked with had to get back to Swindon and she didn't get home until 1am after leaving work before 5pm!

[Dom W]

Have had further thundersnow tonight over Peterlee, Co. Durham. Happened in the last 15 minutes with about 4 flashes within a few minutes, very impressive. Still snowing heavily at the minute.

It is quite surreal, seeing thick snow on the ground, heavy snow falling and then blue lightning.

[Typhoon John]

Lots of thundersnow tonight. At least 5 flashes that i've seen so far.

[multi cellular thunderstorm]

I've had one flash very close earlier, followed quickly by thunder.

Also saw 4 more flashes to my east, and even got lucky and got a photo of one...

I've sent it to BBC Look North so hopefully they'll use it sometime.

[wysiwyg]

Had some on 23 Dec 09 from the band that moved through the NW at around 11.30pm - eerily impressive. First time I have ever seen it.

[GSDog]

I've had one flash very close earlier, followed quickly by thunder.

Also saw 4 more flashes to my east, and even got lucky and got a photo of one...

I've sent it to BBC Look North so hopefully they'll use it sometime.

Wow, that is a stunning picture!

[johnholmes]

I've had one flash very close earlier, followed quickly by thunder.

Also saw 4 more flashes to my east, and even got lucky and got a photo of one...

I've sent it to BBC Look North so hopefully they'll use it sometime.

that is a super shot

good luck with getting it shown-I'm sure they will

[thewirral]

I've had one flash very close earlier, followed quickly by thunder.

Also saw 4 more flashes to my east, and even got lucky and got a photo of one...

I've sent it to BBC Look North so hopefully they'll use it sometime.

Excellent photo mate.

[Dom W]

Had some further lightning in snow around 4.30 this morning - one blue and one bright white flash within minutes of each other.