A rare winter phenomenon may be headed to Deer Valley Ski Resort in Utah where “thundersnow” is forecasted for Thursday.
As you might have guessed, thundersnow is a snowstorm accompanied by thunder and lightning. Thundersnow shares the same mechanisms as regular thunderstorms but is less common due to the need for specific atmospheric conditions, specifically instability in the atmosphere which create the level of vertical motion necessary to develop the charge separation within a cloud.
Thundersnow may sound ominous and make for an awesome name for a Swedish death metal band, but if you take the same precautions as you would in any electrical storm it is not overly dangerous. Thundersnow also often signals heavy snowfall rates so if you’re in Deer Valley and hear rumblings and see lightning bolts, you may want to bust out the powder skis.
