09 March 2005

Here's a new weather term for you all: thunder snow.

It is, simply enough, when you get a snow storm that also produced thunder and/or lightning. We had just such a system yesterday, as in the space of about six hours our temperature dropped by half and the rain turned snow (with a fun frozen rain period in the middle that gave everything a nice, Krispy Kreme-inspired glaze).

Should I be worried that a condition once so rare that Lewis Black called in sick for a gig (in Boston, interestingly) now has its own weather term?

As you can imagine, this was a fun storm to dig out from. Snow on top of ice, blown to various depths thanks to a wind that topped out with gusts around 50 mph. And to think we get to do it all again on Friday. Hopefully without the thunder.

3 comments:

Matt said...

I love that bit of his act - I think the line was something like "I saw lightning, and snow. And I wasn't even on drugs." He also goes into a riff on how depressing New England winter usually is "grey grey grey, grey, grey grey really grey kinda grey. The next day? Greyer than you've ever seen in your life."

Had a similar experience in DC yesterday AM: left the apartment and got on the Metro with the temp in the 40s and a heavy rain. By the time I got off the Metro 20 minutes later, it was in the low 30's and snowing hard.

Mark said...

For our break from the grey snowiness today we had bright sunshine, albeit with temps in the 20s and a below zero wind chill.

And really, is a New England winter worse than a New York winter? I would think all the slush mixed with the stuff in the gutters would be more depressing.

Matt said...

Yes.

Snowstorms in New York are cleared almost before they accumulate; it seems like the plows are there to collect the snow as it falls, rather than push the fallen snow out of the way.

That said, corner slush can be awful. You need a really good grande jette to get from sidewalk to street the day after a good storm.

 Book Log Extra: New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century The New York Times  took a break from trying to get Joe Biden to drop out...