A METEOROLOGIST from the Met Office has confirmed parts of Hampshire experienced thundersnow overnight.

Residents in some parts of the county woke this morning to a blanket of snow across gardens, roads and cars.

During the night some people were woken by a loud bang, while video footage has captured lightning striking.

And now the Met Office has confirmed the thundersnow event took place.

Tom Morgan, a meteorologist at the Met Office, told the Daily Echo: “A band of snow, sleet and some rain along the coast pushed across the whole of the Hampshire and it was quite heavy.

“We did have some thunderstorms as well and therefore we also this phenomenon called thundersnow, which is a thunderstorm that contains snow rather than rain.

“It is not too dissimilar from a thunderstorm we would expect in the summer.

“The differences are that the lightning sometimes appears brighter. This is because the lightning that occurs gets reflected by the snowflakes in the atmosphere.

“Sometimes the thunder is also a little bit more supressed in terms of the noise compared to a summer thunderstorm because the snow also dampens down the sound.”

He added: “It definitely happens every year but it is perhaps not a yearly occurrence across Hampshire, more likely every few years.

“Across the UK it does happen every winter. It is a little bit more common in the north of the UK where the air tends to be colder during the winter.

“It was quite unusual last night in that it coincided with a particularly heavy band of snow, which accumulated to several centimetres quite quickly across parts of Hampshire.”