When lightning occurs in a snowstorm, it is called thundersnow. This can occur when there is strong instability and abundant moisture above the surface, such as above a warm front.
Source: NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory
Stories by FactCheck.org
December 18, 2009
As of 2008, the city of North Pole, Alaska, had a population of 2,212.
Source: Census Bureau
December 17, 2009
Fourteen percent of department store sales and 18 percent of jewelry store sales in 2008 occurred in December.
Source: Census Bureau
December 16, 2009
Last December, retail sales by online shopping and mail-order houses totaled $24 billion, the highest total for any month of the year.
Source: Census Bureau
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Dec. 8-Dec. 14
This week, readers sent us comments on Climategate, Climategate, Climategate, Climategate, Obama’s Nobel speech and Hanukkah. We’ve included here a representative sample, and we respond to an e-mail whose author makes an argument that would allow cherry-picking of climate data. As legislation makes its way through Congress (or doesn’t), we’ll be returning to the climate change issue.
In the FactCheck Mailbag we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
December 15, 2009
The new United States of America ratified the Bill of Rights on Dec. 15, 1791.
Source: Library of Congress
December 14, 2009
A little more than half of the United States’ potatoes were produced in Idaho and Washington in 2008.
Source: Census Bureau/National Agriculture Statistics Service
December 13, 2009
In 1997 a massive menorah was built in Latrun, Israel. It was more than 60 feet tall, requiring a rabbi to be lifted in a crane each night of Hanukkah to light the candles.
Source: History Channel
December 12, 2009
Hanukkah means "rededication," and it commemorates the rededication of the temple of Jerusalem by the Maccabees, a group of Jews who defeated the Syrian Greeks in a three-year war.
Source: BBC
December 11, 2009
The lowest temperature recorded in the world is -129 degrees Fahrenheit in Vostok, Antarctica, measured on July 21, 1983.
Source: NOAA