Quite a good thunderstorm rumbling around Perth dumping fair amount of snow. Is it usual to get thunderstorms in such cold weather?

I’d think that was pretty unusual
I’m getting prepared to be completely roasted here, but don’t you need warm and cold air for thunder storms?

for a thunderstorm you need an unstable air mass, one that has lots of lots of energy in the lower levels waiting for a trigger to release it (and cause all that energy laden air to rise and rise, leading to a good ol’ storm)

that trigger is usually heating from below – not likely in winter you might have thought, but at this time of year, especially overnight, the sea temps are much higher than the surface temps over land, so air masses going out over the sea can be triggered off if they’re unstable.

this cold weather is caused by northerly winds coming in, so our sea temps are alot higher and could be enough to do it

Thundersnow. It’s what dumped a foot of snow on haldon hill last winter in a pretty short period of time…

As above, I’d have thought you’d need warm, humid air to trigger it. Can’t see that in Scotland in winter, esp at the moment.

Definitely thunder and lightning and snow around Perth at the moment. A bit surreal really.

Same here in dundee, havnt slept a wink with the thunder and sheet lightning, only seems to have produced about 4″ of snow though and sounded a lot worse. I am sure there will be lots more snow higher up though.

sockpuppet – yeah we’re not that all that far from the sea, and the weather seems to be coming in from the east, so that could be a valid explanation, cheers.
Just not something I’ve experienced before……its still going.

As above, I’d have thought you’d need warm, humid air to trigger it. Can’t see that in Scotland in winter, esp at the moment.

Warmer and more humid. Sea temps are still relatively high.

As sockpuppet suggested, everything’s relative. Air from north travels over warmer, moister north sea, then over very cold land – instability.

To get a thunderstorm you just need a thick depth of cloud (usually to the troposphere) with cloud tops less than about -20 celsius and convective enough to sustain hail growth. (this is not quite the whole story…but sufficent for this)

Southern england tends to experience thunderstorms with the release of medium level instability from northwards tracking tropical airmasses, so people in southern UK tend to associate thunderstorms with hot summer days,

Across Northern Britain, this tropical outbreak triggering situation is much rarer, but very cold air moving across warm sea temperatures can trigger very deep convection as sockpuppet describes, so in northern half of the UK thunder tends to be a winter phenomena…especially around Northern Scotland/North Isles.

Haldon Hill last year was a nice example of severe convection in cold air being triggered by warm sea temperatures around Cornwall.

Weather man on BBC at 9.10 (just now) has just reported that he has just witnessed thunder and lightning whilst standing in the snow in northumberland..

Saw that too toys!

Below is Iceland Met Office display of the various MEt Office’s Thunderstorm dEtector network.

Red dots/Crosses most recent, blue stuff is 24hrs ago. The locations fit in well with the snow shower activity on rainfall radar…as you’d expect

gwaelod – have you got a link to that? Couldn’t find it on the Icelandic met office site.

<edit>got it ta!</edit>

Yup we had thunder last night in Aberdeen.

You can get it in the winter, but it is rare.

Only seen it once before, but it is pretty awesome 8)

had it on friday night up here around inverness, thunders down the valleys really well!
THUNDERSNOW!!

HUGE flash in the sky just as I was reading this! 😮
I’m in Woodside, Perthshire.
Followed by a massive rumble of thunder and now the snow’s driving down twice as fast.
Will I be able to get to work tonight?
I hope I’m not driving any of the appliances tonight!

We had it in Dingwall. Couldn’t believe it until I went outside.

Unless it was the Scottish Republican Army doing an artillery barrage in honour of the Royal engagement….

Seen a couple of flashes from up over the border direction whilst out walking the dogs half an hour ago.

Driving down the A93 into Perth this afternoon we saw a few good flashes – some extremely bright and close. Felt the shcokwave from one of them shake the car! I was counting the gap between flash and thuinder and this was under 2 seconds, so only a few hundred metres away. I was already pretty excited driving down the snowy road, but an electrical storm was really not what I expected!