Heatwave snow? National Weather Service said hail, registered as snow, fell at Philadelphia Airport

PHILADELPHIA — While temperatures hit 94 on Sunday, the Philadelphia airport had what some think is an odd summer phenomenon a trace amount of SNOW.

The National Weather Service said that a line of thunderstorms produced hail on Sunday, but according to the rules at the NWS, it called the hail a “‘trace’ of snow in our climate reports” on Monday.

The weather service said the trace even broke a record which had been set more than 150 years ago in 1870.

The most recent time there was a summer-time trace of snow was on Aug. 18, 2011. In all, there have been 13 times where “snow” has fallen in the summer, KYW reported.

Some social media users questioned calling the hail a trace of snow, pointing out that hail falls frequently all year long, but the National Weather Service explained, “Hail is counted in the CLIs as snowfall and has been due to NCEI policy. Frozen precipitation falls under this umbrella (snow, hail, sleet, graupel, etc). The exception being freezing rain which falls as liquid and doesn’t freeze until it comes into contact with the surface.”

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