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We get this fairly often in the Great Lakes area, but I can imagine how scientists in Alabama might get excited - it's a damned impressive experience, especially the mega-lightnings blue-purple glow & gravity waves.
PhysOrg....
PhysOrg....
NASA atmospheric scientists got an unexpected chance to study a curious phenomenon called "thundersnow" when a recent storm unleashed it right over their heads.
Walt Petersen and Kevin Knupp have traveled far and wide to study winter storms. They never dreamed that the most extraordinary one they'd see – featuring freakish thundersnow, a 50-mile long lightning bolt, and almost a dozen gravity waves -- would erupt in their own back yards. The storm hit Huntsville, Alabama, on the evening of January 9th.
"This incredible storm rolled right over the National Space Science and Technology Center where we work," says Knupp. "What luck!"
Snowstorms usually slip in silently, with soft snowflakes drifting noiselessly to Earth. Yet this Alabama snowstorm swept in with the fanfare of lightning and the growl of thunder.
Eyewitness Steve Coulter described the night's events: "It was as if a wizard was hurling lightning behind a huge white curtain. The flashes, muted inside thick, low hanging clouds, glowed purplish blue, like light through a prism. And then the thunder rumbled deep and low. This was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced.'"
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From his at-home workstation, Petersen can monitor lightning detector networks and control radars, which he used to measure and record the storm. But when the storm first hit his response was a little less scientific: "I was so excited that I ran outside in my house slippers to take pictures," he recalls.
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Walt Petersen and Kevin Knupp have traveled far and wide to study winter storms. They never dreamed that the most extraordinary one they'd see – featuring freakish thundersnow, a 50-mile long lightning bolt, and almost a dozen gravity waves -- would erupt in their own back yards. The storm hit Huntsville, Alabama, on the evening of January 9th.
"This incredible storm rolled right over the National Space Science and Technology Center where we work," says Knupp. "What luck!"
Snowstorms usually slip in silently, with soft snowflakes drifting noiselessly to Earth. Yet this Alabama snowstorm swept in with the fanfare of lightning and the growl of thunder.
Eyewitness Steve Coulter described the night's events: "It was as if a wizard was hurling lightning behind a huge white curtain. The flashes, muted inside thick, low hanging clouds, glowed purplish blue, like light through a prism. And then the thunder rumbled deep and low. This was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced.'"
>
From his at-home workstation, Petersen can monitor lightning detector networks and control radars, which he used to measure and record the storm. But when the storm first hit his response was a little less scientific: "I was so excited that I ran outside in my house slippers to take pictures," he recalls.
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