Ice Crystals Are Forming Strange Patterns Above NYC
For miles above the highest spires of New York City, the ice has turned. Uncountable billions of ice crystals, each of them just about a millimeter in length, have spontaneously organized. All together at once, as if hearing (or delivering) some unheard instruction, they are pointing. That way. That way. That way.
Follow the lines of their frigid tips and you'll find an invisible thing of enormous power: a massive field of electrical force, stretching over much of the length of the storm. That field is the source of
the lightning bolts and thundersnow (loud claps that accompany some snowstorms) that are being heard across Manhattan today.
It's March 7, the day of a powerful nor'easter stretching from Maryland to Boston, and National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center forecaster Joey Picca said this sort of strange alignment — which happens inside
clouds — isn't incredibly rare or surprising. But it is unusual enough for forecasters to start geeking out. ...
... "We don't experience it every day or every month, even, at that. But with our observation capabilities, we do see some thundersnow from time to time with the stronger storm systems."
Those observation capabilities are pretty new. Scientists have only been able to watch the ice crystals align this way on radar for the last six or seven years, Picca said, thanks to advances in sensing technology. And with modern radar, we can see that the effect is dramatic. ...