The crash site is about 40 miles from my location. At about the time of the crash there was a small line of thunderstomes with hail going through the area. A lot of time when there is hail, there is strong up/down drafts. Not sure this was the cause, but i wouldn't be surprised.
Could be part of it, sure. Hail, if large enough can damage the blades in the turbines, and if conditions are right, the vents between the turbines can ice over. If this happens when the engine is ingesting large amounts of water, pressure builds up between the two sets of turbine blades, and causes the engine to surge, power wise. Adding throttle (attempting to power up) causes the pressure to build to the point of flame out, even though that would be the instinctive thing to do.
If both engines flame out, the Auxiliary Power Unit must be deployed to keep the instruments functioning, and there is a two minute (roughly) delay from deployment to power up. In zero visibility conditions in a storm without visual horizon references, disorientation (especially with up/down drafts and turbulence) can cause the pilots to put the plane in an unrecoverable dive, which fits the pattern here. This is just educated speculation, only one set of possible factors, and I await the NTSB report.