With the blizzard warnings up for the eastern New England states and the rest of the Northeast under a winter storm warning, you may hear or read the term “thunder-snow” in weather discussions today. Some people in the triangle actually heard thunder-snow for themselves back in January with our first winter storm of the year.

With all of the concern over tonight’s forecast, the term blizzard is getting tossed about quite a bit - either in jest or misunderstanding of the term. Don’t worry. A blizzard is far from what we expect over night, but what does the term “blizzard” mean anyway?