One second it was a normal snowfall outside the window in Örebro.
Photo: Reader picture
In the next moment there was a lot of lightning.
Photo: Reader picture
The sky was lit up by the unusual phenomenon of “thunder snow”.
Photo: Reader picture
Örebro resident Isra Golparian was watching TV with her husband Josef and the couple’s two children when it suddenly went dark on Wednesday evening.
– We were lying on the sofa, which faces outwards, watching TV and suddenly saw a flash. I thought: “what the hell happened”. So we turned off all the lights outside and inside and stood and waited, says Isra Golparian.
– After a few minutes, the lightning and thunder started again. So we started filming with the mobile phone, she says.
It was then that they captured the unusual phenomenon “thundersnow” on picture.
– We didn’t think there could be thunder in the winter, says Isra Golparian.
“Not common in Sweden”
The reason for the phenomenon is spelled out by the heavy snowfall that swept across Sweden on Wednesday, explains Johan Groth, meteorologist at the weather institute Storm.
He says that “thunder snow” is due to large voltage differences between the particles in the air.
– Then there may be a discharge. But it is not usual to have thunder in Sweden in the winter. But it happens.
The phenomenon occurs above all in the United States, which has a more dramatic weather.
– So she has experienced something that not all people have.
During Wednesday, SMHI’s lightning and radar map registered several lightning strikes in both southern and central Sweden in connection with the progress of the winter storm.
READ MORE: It’s lightning here – in the middle of the snow chaos