Scientist to tackle Thundersnow rarity...

[Typhoon_Willie]

I thought I would post this interesting article that came off the Yahoo news server. It is about Missouri Scientist Patrick Market efforts to find out when and why this event ((Thundersnow events) that seems to fortell of a local and very heavy snow event!) occurs. If after reading this article you would like to help this individual out by reporting a possbile thundersnow event in your area a link to his web site is provided at the bottom of the article.


Here is the Article for your reading pleasure!


Scientist to Tackle 'Thundersnow' Rarity



By BILL DRAPER, Associated Press Writer

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Sometimes in the middle of a Midwestern snowstorm, thunder growls and lightning sends dull flashes among the clouds. A University of Missouri researcher has received a $460,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (news - web sites) to find out when and why.

Missouri scientist Patrick Market said for the past four years he's been looking into a phenomenon known as thundersnow, an apparently rare event that some researchers believe foreshadows an intense snowstorm with heavy accumulation.


Part of his five-year study, which began in July, will try to determine whether thundersnow is rare or just doesn't get reported much.


"One of the questions I'd like to answer precisely is how rare it is," Market said. "Some of it may actually go undetected."


A thundersnow storm Jan. 17, 1994, in Louisville, Ky., dropped about 2 feet of snow, Market said. The center of the storm — a narrow band that contained thunder and lightning — went directly over Louisville, where the biggest accumulation was recorded.


A year later, in January 1995, the same happened in Columbia, Mo., he said. Thundersnow was reported over the city, where the harshest part of the storm hit.


"The kicker here is that the lines of snow were pretty narrow," Market said. "If you took the same band of snowfall 20 miles north of Louisville, or bump the one that fell on Columbia over a little so it affected Sedalia instead, it becomes more of a footnote and doesn't grab as much attention."


Thundersnow is more likely to happen around the Great Lakes because of instability caused by the "lake effect," Market said. However, the study he is concentrating more on non-lake effect thundersnow that occurs in a loose arc across the central U.S.


States where thundersnow is most frequently reported are Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and into northern Texas, Market said.


A priority of the study will be to find ways to forecast thundersnow. Market and a team of students will make about three or four road trips each winter to chase major snowstorms in search of the elusive thundersnow.


Greg Koch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (news - web sites) in Pleasant Hill, Mo., said forecasting thundersnow would greatly help meteorologists understand where the biggest accumulations might hit.


"Thundersnow oftentimes is very small-scale phenomena which can lead to wide variations in snow amounts in very small area," Koch said.


Market is trying to enlist the help of anyone with Internet access who witnesses lightning in a winter snowstorm. He has set up a Web site where people can fill out a form and write what they remember.


The next step, he said, would be to look at what causes thundersnow, such as updrafts similar to those found in summer storms.


___


On the Net:




http://weather.missouri.edu/ROCS/particip.html

[Colin]

Thanks for the info!!!

[Typhoon_Willie]

No problem Colin! I thought you guys might like the article and help out!

[li-mike]

But would one be wrong to wager that the same reasons there are higher totals in a Rain event thunderstorms in a small geographic area carry true to a Snow TS event? I mean I may not be the smartest person in the world but to spend several hundred thousand dollars to find the same dynamics in place during a Summer TS and a Winter TS seems a bit crazy.

[JCT777]

Agreed, li-mike. But you know there is a LOT of crazy spending on. Heck, my wife will start the crazy holiday spending any day now.

[PTrackerLA]

I've experienced thundersnow once while skiing in the mountains of New Mexico. They closed the ski lifts and it began to snow graupel extremely hard which turned into one of the heaviest snows I've ever seen, really neat stuff!

[Typhoon_Willie]

I guess they are trying to figure out how to forecast these events more accurately!