Why doesn thunder and lightning occur during snowstorms?
Lightning can occur during a snowstorm but it’s rare. To understand why, you need to understand why lightning occurs in the first place. The mechanism by which huge charges build up in different parts of clouds is still debated, but for sure it involves high winds shearing electrons off of liquid water droplets. Electrons are much less mobile in solids than in liquids, so this process occurs little if at all with ice crystals,which is the way snowflakes start out. Also, if it’s snowing, it is usually at or below the freezing point at ground level, and it will be even colder at higher elevations where the flakes are forming, so there are unlikely any liquid droplets at that time to provide the basic ingredients for lightning.
