As you probably have heard by now, a massive and seriously dangerous winter-weather system is forecast to bring record cold temperatures along with ice and snowstorms across roughly two-thirds of the country over the next several days. You may have also heard a bunch of novel terms being thrown around to warn you about what’s coming, particularly on social media. If you’re wondering what thunder ice is, why the European model is being cited by co-workers who suddenly sound like climate scientists, or what differentiates frost quakes from frost crack, we’ve put together a guide to some of the lesser known (and scarier-sounding) terminology we’ve seen.

Perhaps you’ve already heard of thundersnow, which is when there is thunder and lightning during a snowstorm. Well, that could happen again in this storm, and there’s also a potential for thunder ice and thunder sleet, per MyRadarWX’s Matthew Cappucci:

Surface temperatures will be below freezing, allowing freezing rain and wintry precipitation. It might be in the mid-20s! But half a mile to a mile above the ground, 44 degrees. That warmer air upstairs leads to some “instability,” or thunderstorm fuel, rooted at the mid-levels. So yes, thunder/lightning will be possible! I can’t even rule out some pea-sized hail with some of the thunder-ice and thunder-sleet storms. There could be more intense ice accretion rates nearing 0.07 or 0.08 inches/hour during thunder-ice. Conversely, if it rains *too* heavily, some of the raindrops won’t be able to freeze as efficiently due to latent heat release (raindrops release a tiny bit of heat when they freeze).

THUNDER-ICE is likely coming to the Mississippi River Valley on Saturday night or early Sunday. This includes east Texas, northern Louisiana, eastern/southeast Arkansas, northwest Mississippi and western Tennessee.

Surface temperatures will be below freezing, allowing freezing… pic.twitter.com/hmXzjhdTLI

The sudden extreme cold snap could cause trees to explode in the upper Midwest, according to meteorologists. It’s because the water in tree sap can rapidly expand as it freezes, causing a tree’s bark to crack and explode, sort of like how water pipes can burst when they freeze in an unheated home. Yes, this does actually happen, and the bursting sometimes sounds like a gunshot coming from a suddenly freezing forest.

EXPLODING TREES are possible in the Midwest and Northern Plains on Friday and Saturday, as temperatures are forecasted to fall 20 degrees BELOW zero! pic.twitter.com/nqnoqsbHNU

It does not, however, look or sound at all like this parody AI depiction:

Here is a realistic depiction of what exploding trees could look like in the upper Midwest this weekend ‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/wrb7PRifrn

Another term used to describe the sudden fracturing that causes rapidly freezing trees to explode.

This is like the exploding-trees phenomenon but in wet ground. A frost quake is a form of seismic activity also known as cryoseism, which is caused by rapid drops to subfreezing temperatures in waterlogged soil or rock. It’s highly localized and not an........

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