Lincoln County residents who heard the rumble of thunder during the Sun. storm may have experienced an event so rare that it is only reported on average three times a year in the United States.
A bulletin released by the National Weather Service (NWS) at 4:36 p.m. on Sun. included a warning for “thunder snow” — also known as a “winter thunderstorm” or a “thunder snowstorm”.
The area affected by the warning included Lincoln County coastal areas.
Thunder snow is a rare thunderstorm with snow falling as the primary precipitation instead of rain, according to Wikipedia.com and confirmed by the NWS. It commonly falls in regions of strong upward motion within the cold sector of extratropical cyclones between autumn and spring when surface temperatures are most likely to be near or below freezing.
According to meteoroligst Eric Sinsabaugh with the NWS station in Gray, conditions were right for thunder snow along the midcoast from York County to Belfast between late Sun. afternoon and mid-evening.
Since thunder snow is often generated by cloud to cloud lightning, the existing NWS technology for recording lightning — which is callibrated for cloud to ground lightning only — is not effective in identifying snow thunder, Sinsabaugh said. Instead, the NWS must rely on observations from the public.
One report of thunder was received from the town of Hollis on Sun., which supports the possibility of thunder snow activity as the storm bands tracked northward up the coast, according to Sinsabaugh.
Any Lincoln County residents who heard thunder or saw lightning during the Sun. storm are encouraged to contact Lincoln County News correspondent Greg Latimer at 380-9912.
