Students jump out of their seats and rush toward the window. Excited chatter stirs up the cold classrooms as snow quickly falls from the gray sky, blanketing the campus with thick, fluffy piles of fresh, print-free, snow. The dragging mid-fall dreariness washes away as students are filled with hopes of snowmen, hot chocolate and all things winter. Soon after the snow starts to pile up thicker than anyone had expected, the wishful winter fantasies quickly turn into shock as booming thunder rings from the sky. A bright white flash pours into the windows and is gone as quickly as it arrives. A muted boom follows closely. 

An unseasonably early fall snow surprised students Thursday, Oct. 24 as they sat in their morning classes.

“It was third period when I heard the thunder,” junior Evelyn Garcia said. “I thought I was going crazy because you never hear thunder when it snows.”

This weather phenomenon is widely known as “thundersnow,” and it is exactly as it seems: thunder and lightning during a snowstorm. 

“I normally put together snow and joy, and then I heard the thunder,” junior Gage Saunders said. “I was like ‘wait a minute.’ It was a confusing thing.” 

Many students disregarded the weather forecast, assuming the snow wouldn’t be any more than a dusting that would melt away before lunch. 

“I knew it was snowing,” junior Devin Robinson said. “I didn’t know it was stormy-snowing.”

Robinson said she generally enjoys the cold when she doesn’t have to be out in it.

“I should have worn an extra sweater today,” Robinson said. “I regret not doing that even though my mom told me to. I like being all snuggled up in a comforter with some hot chocolate, but when I get outside it’s awful. It’s terrible. It’s wet, and I’m not a fan.”

Robinson wasn’t the only person to experience discomfort in the cold weather. After walking to an outside class two periods prior, junior Monica Houseal said the snow stuck to her shoes as she walked. 

“My shoes are still wet,” Houseal said. “My feet are freezing; I can’t feel them, but that’s fine.”

Houseal spends every Thanksgiving in Michigan.

“It’s always the first snow during Thanksgiving,” Houseal said. “It’s not even November yet. I think it’s interesting that it’s snowing in the Texas Panhandle before it is in Michigan. It’s lovely, I love it, but I’m curious as to why. It’s unusual.”

Having moved to Canyon from a colder climate, junior Presleigh Hullman said she missed school for a whole week last year because of extreme negative temperatures. The temperature there dipped to -70 degrees. Temperature Thursday morning was in the 30s.

“I think it’s pretty great considering we’re in Texas,” Hullman said. “I’m from Minnesota so the heat is a lot, and now that it’s snowing, I feel like I’m at home.”