【Science Fiction Archives】

Snow has started to fall in the United States,Science Fiction Archives but not in the places you might expect.

In yet another example of unusual weather this year, the first week of December brought accumulating snow to places like Austin, Texas, Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia — places that rarely ever seeseveral inches of snow, let alone experience a snowstorm before Christmas.

Snow even fell as far south as Corpus Christi, Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border, where there was at least one instance of "thundersnow" caught on radar.

SEE ALSO: Powerful cold front to usher in winter across the U.S., but it may not mean heavy snow

The snow in the South has actually preceded the first measurable snow in traditionally snowy places, including New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston. This is an extremely rare occurrence.

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Confused, surprised, and excited residents of the South have been sharing their views of the snow on Twitter.

For Houston — which had temperatures in the 80s Fahrenheit on Thursday — this first winter snowfall could wind up ranking in the city's top 10 heaviest snowfalls in history. Several inches have fallen throughout the metro area.

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A lightning strike was detected in a band of heavier snow near Corpus Christi on Friday morning, indicating thundersnow, the most elusive of weather phenomena.

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The conditions were so out of the ordinary that Corpus Christi's National Weather Service (NWS) forecast office felt the need to throw some shade by tweeting at NWS forecast offices in Maine, Illinois, and Iowa — three states that have yet to fully transform into winter wonderlands.

"We think we found something you are missing! Let us know how to return it to you!" Corpus Christi's official NWS Twitter account tweeted alongside a video of snow falling in Texas.

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Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge shared photos of a snow-covered Tiger Stadium, and other residents posted footage showing flurries still falling, with cars, roofs, and streets already blanketed.

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And Alabama is getting quite the dusting, too.

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Sure the timing of the snow in these areas is premature, but what makes these snowfalls even more bizarre is the fact that cities usually dealing with snow by now have yet to experience it. The Lower 48 states have had very little snow cover so far this winter, with just a quarter of this region counted as snow-covered as of Dec. 8, 2017.

The same storm system bringing snow to the South and Southeast, though, is forecast to intensify as it moves up the East Coast, eventually blanketing areas from Washington, D.C. to Maine in several inches.

So the South may have had a head start, but the Northeast won't have to be jealous for long.

Additional reporting by Science Editor Andrew Freedman.

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