The correct option is A Past Perfect Continuous Tense
The tense of a sentence denotes a time, whether it is the time now (present), time then (past) or the time to come (future). The verb of a sentence has most to do with the tense. The given sentence is of the form had been + present participle (thundering), the same as that of the past perfect continuous tense, it describes an action that took place in the past and continued till a certain point of time in the past, hence option B is correct. The form used in the past perfect tense is had + past participle, in present perfect continuous tense the form used is have been + present participle, and the form used in simple past tense is only the past participle, like 'rained' in It rained yesterday. The given sentence does not contain any of these forms, hence options A, C and D are incorrect.