Thundersnow?

January is known for its fickle weather around here, and it doesn't get much more fickle than the last few days.

It has been a very mild January, but until last week the clouds stayed doggedly in place. Late last week the clouds finally parted, and the temperatures started rising. Solar energy! Here's what the thermometer looked like in mid afternoon.

Well, you have to remember that the normal high around here is about 20F in January. Pretty impressive to me.

The solar power did a number on the remnants of our snow. That we still have snow is because it's remained cloudy nearly all the time, keeping temperature from going past 40F. The sun finally won out, and it was time for some melting.

On Saturday, we were planning to visit my mom. I was focused in on writing stories that morning, but I finally remembered to check the weather forecast. So I was about the last person to learn that we were under a heavy snow warning--for that night and Sunday morning. I called home, and we quickly agreed to push up our schedule by about two hours and rush through everything we had to do. I opted to leave the camera at home, a choice I regretted later.

The morning had been sunny, but as we started our trip in the early afternoon, I could see the clouds heading our way from the south. We stopped at my mom's home, got her mail, went to the nursing home, visited there for an hour, made our obligatory stop at Wally World, hit the Hardee's for an early supper (it was only about 4:30 p.m.) and then headed for home.

By now it had gotten completely cloudy, the sun was setting, but no snow or rain yet, I noted happily.

I saw the first snowflakes in the headlights about 15 miles down the road. It was snowing steadily a few miles after that and coming down pretty heavily a few miles later. The road started turning white. Then you could see tracks in the road. I remarked to my wife that we didn't leave any too early. Driving in heavy snow is something I avoid whenever possible.

But we were only about 10 miles from home now and had crossed back into Michigan (to get home, we have to drive into Wisconsin and then back into Michigan; it's 50 miles each way). Then I saw a little flash in the sky to the north. "Did you see that?" my wife asked. "Yeah," I said. Then we saw another flash. Were we getting lightning? Thundersnow? I had experienced that long ago, but the weather conditions seemed wrong.

Then we saw a reddish flash through the snowflakes. WTF? Then a green one. By now we were getting close to town, and the mystery was quickly solved.

We had forgotten that there was a winter celebration planned for Saturday, and they were firing off fireworks in the evening. That was it. We pulled over and watched the end of the show in the snow. My camera was nice and safe back home, so no photographic evidence.

(For the record, that's the third consecutive fireworks show I've watched under unusual weather circumstances. On the Fourth of July 2004, the clouds were very low, and the fireworks were shot off into the clouds/fog. The clouds came and went--we saw some of the show well, and other parts were behind the cloudy curtain. It was strange. Last summer, on the Fourth, it was a rainstorm that coincided with the fireworks show. Now this. So first it was fog, then rain and now snow.)

Anyway ... Once I got home, I took a picture of the snow falling along the street. There were two inches on the ground by then.

When I got up and went to work Sunday morning, it was more like seven or eight inches of wet heavy stuff. Here's what the back yard looked like ...

And this is what the back steps looked like after I climbed down them.

So it's been an eccentric few days weatherwise. But, hey, it's still January, so what should I expect? By the way, it's still not subzero. And I don't miss it at all.