Snow falls on homes and streets of Westhaven in Franklin on Friday Jan. 22, 2016. (Photo: Shelley Mays / The Tennessean)
A
major<span style="color: Red;">*</span>blizzard<span style="color: Red;">*</span>barreling toward the East Coast has coupled in areas with a rare phenomenon known as "Thundersnow."
As the storm hit<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Tennessee this morning, residents took to Twitter to report booms amid the snowy sky.
Thundersnow<span style="color: Red;">*</span>is when a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>thunderstorm produces<span style="color: Red;">*</span>snow instead of rain.
Such storms come<span style="color: Red;">*</span>most<span style="color: Red;">*</span>often with heavy rates of snowfall -- probably at least six inches, a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>
study<span style="color: Red;">*</span>found --<span style="color: Red;">*</span>though they often occur<span style="color: Red;">*</span>around lakes.
Thundersnow
needs upward-moving air, or convection, which is rare<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>winter storms.
USA TODAY columnist Thomas M.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Kostigen
explains the science:
"Thundersnow forms<span style="color: Red;">*</span>when temperature and moisture conditions are just right —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a mass of cold on top of warm air, plus moist air closer to the ground."
As a snowstorm<span style="color: Red;">*</span>expected to affect
tens of<span style="color: Red;">*</span><span style="color: Red;">*</span>millions<span style="color: Red;">*</span>makes its way through the U.S., much of the country will get messy.
But through the warm safety of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Twitter, we can observe<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the
#thundersnow:
Thundersnow gets intense:<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Watch the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore flip out during one:
Follow Josh Hafner on Twitter:<span style="color: Red;">*</span>@joshhafner
USA TODAY
Snowstorm wallops South, heads for Mid-Atlantic, Northeast
USA TODAY
Epic blizzard with heavy snow begins to move up East Coast
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