Yes, ‘thunder ice’ is a thing, National Weather Service says

The crackling of thunder and flashes of lightning amid freezing temperatures have created a rare occurrence in the Kansas City area, according to the National Weather Service.

It’s called “thunder ice.”

Thunder ice is an unusual phenomenon, though a real concern to meteorologists.

“It’s not something we see very often, but it does happen from time to time and that’s what we experienced across the area this morning,” said Chris Bowman, a meteorologist in the weather service’s Pleasant Hill office. “It’s fairly unusual. ... You get pretty heavy rainfall rates and obviously with temperatures below freezing right now that leads to heavy ice accumulation. That’s one of the things that led to the decision of issuing the ice storm warning this (Tuesday) morning.”

The ice storm warning is in effect until 6 p.m. Tuesday. The National Weather Service reported early Tuesday that the northwest part of the Kansas City metro may see up to three-tenths of an inch of ice and possibly less on the southeastern side due to temperatures lingering at around freezing.

The slick conditions have caused dozens of power outages, schools to cancel classes, flight cancellations and delays at KCI and some traffic accidents between Missouri and Kansas.

“Whenever you have ice like we have right now, typically what you have is your surface layer near the ground is at or below freezing, but aloft in the middle to upper portion of the atmosphere, temperatures are above freezing, so that creates instability aloft in middle portions of the atmosphere, and when you have instability like that, you can have thunderstorm activity, and that’s exactly what occurred today,” Bowman explained.

Bowman said thunder is possible throughout Tuesday morning, though things are expected to wind down by the early afternoon hours.

Here’s how some on Twitter have reacted to Tuesday’s thunder ice.

This story was originally published February 20, 2018 at 11:51 AM with the headline "Yes, ‘thunder ice’ is a thing, National Weather Service says."