Do winter thunderstorms mean snow is on its way to the Carolinas? It’s complicated
North Carolina has been hit with a rash of uncharacteristic winter weather of late.
Temperatures have spiked while sporadic thunderstorms drenched Charlotte and Raleigh the last three days. But according to the National Weather Service, it’s not over.
More storms are possible Wednesday afternoon with chances of precipitation breaking 50 percent in both metropolises, forecasters say.
Could snow be next?
Folklore suggests thunderstorms are a precursor to snow.
“If there is thunder in winter, it will snow seven days later,” according to the Farmers’ Almanac.
By all accounts, muskrat holes, hornets nests, squirrels and fog in August are also good indicators.
So here’s the highly technical, much anticipated and extremely definitive answer: maybe.
As the great Stephen Hawking once said, “One can’t predict the weather more than a few days in advance.” But experts agree there is some truth to the old wives’ tale.
Winter thunder can often be an indicator of certain weather patterns given the type of atmospheric conditions that typically accompany it, How Stuff Works determined.
“Cold air and low-pressure systems from the north displacing warm air and high pressure in the south form an unstable atmosphere that can create terrific conditions for thunderstorms,” the science website states.
Thunder thus signals a cold front is coming and — combined with the moisture — it might just lead to snow.
The Farmers’ Almanac did its own sleuthing in “The Facts Behind the Folklore” and came to relatively the same conclusion, finding snow after such storms is true about 70 percent of the time thanks to cold air hanging out for a few days behind the front.
“When the next weather system arrives several — if not exactly seven — days later, temperatures may still be cold enough to cause the moisture in the system to fall as snow,” according to the Almanac.
What about in North Carolina?
Don Schwenneker is a meteorologist for ABC11 in Raleigh.
He did a study of his own and initially found the data points weren’t a ringing endorsement.
But the third time’s the charm, as they say.
Schwenneker looked at the data differently each time he reported his findings. Most recently, he examined every time it thundered in December, January, February and March over the last 50 years at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Of the 129 times that happened, he found it snowed within 10 days about 19 percent of the time.
“It’s funny,” Schwenneker said. “Those old weather sayings tend to have some truth in them, or they wouldn’t have stuck around so long.”
So who knows, perhaps the Carolinas are in for a bit of thundersnow.
Let’s just hope it’s as exciting as legendary Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore makes it out to be.
