DALLAS — The winter storm intensified across North Texas on Tuesday morning, dumping freezing rain and sleet through the area.
And with it brought an added meteorological wrinkle: Thundersleet.
Radar even detected lightning as the storm rumbled through North Texas.
Our WFAA crews in Fort Worth heard several rounds of loud thundersleet, and then our team members in Arlington heard the same.
Here's a look (and listen) to several videos we got in Arlington and Fort Worth:
So you might be asking: What is thundersleet?
It's actually not as rare as it may sound, especially when we have wintry weather in North Texas.
Thundersleet occurs when the conditions are right for thunderstorms, but temperatures at the surface are below freezing.
As rain falls to the ground, it falls through subfreezing air at the surface. This causes the rain to freeze into little balls, forming the kind of sleet we saw Tuesday.
This sleet comes from a thunderstorm; that's why it's accompanied with claps of thunder and flashes of lightning, as we saw Tuesday morning in North Texas.
Heavy bursts are likely in these storms creating locally heavy amounts of sleet.
The sleet and freezing rain caused havoc on the roads, as highways became slick and icy. Temperatures are expected to remain below freezing in North Texas through the day Tuesday and into Wednesday.
The National Weather Service earlier Tuesday extended the winter storm warning to 6 a.m. Thursday, due to the ongoing cold temperatures and ice.