Day 5: Thundersnow and other snow oddities

Today I spotted an ominous cumulonimbus cloud rolling on top of Albany. With the temperature at nearly 40°F and some wet snow falling from the sky, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d get to see the famous ‘thundersnow’ that meterologues get hyped about (if you want to see a Weather Channel guy go crazy with excitement over thundersnow, click here). Thundersnow, like its name suggests, is a thunderstorm that produces snow instead of rain. This is a very rare event because for thundersnow to happen, a winter storm needs convection, or upward moving air, which is very rare in winter. It’s a real treat for the science geek though. To quote Jim Cantore experiencing thundersnow in Boston, “You can have your $500 million jackpot in Powerball or whatever, but I’ll take this baby!”. Alas, the conditions were not right for my thundersnow, because instead I got hailed by graupel.