Bomb Cyclone

 

NY Post

For four days now, the weather reports have been warning of a huge winter storm heading our way.  It is supposed to start tomorrow, Thursday December 22 and end on Friday.  It is predicted to dump anywhere from 8 to 24 inches of snow.  As the storm is coming from the northwest, it is dragging artic air frigid air along with it.

Today, the day before the storm is to hit, the high is going to be 30 degrees with a low of 9.  On Friday, when the storm has passed the high will be 0 and the low -8.  That is cold by December standards.  It sounds certain we will have a White Christmas.

Yesterday, I heard the storm referred to as a “Bomb Cyclone” on a local news weather report.  Bomb Cyclone?  I had never heard that term before.  What the heck is a Bomb Cyclone?  Cyclone makes it sound so Asian and Pacific Oceany.  A quick internet search had CNN telling me that:

Bomb cyclone is a term given to a rapidly strengthening storm that fulfills one important criterion. Generally, pressure must drop 24 millibars (a unit of pressure) within 24 hours.

 

However, that benchmark is also based on the latitude of the storm. So, the millibar requirement can change depending on where the storm forms.

Well that totally clears it up.

The term was created in 1980 by two MIT meteorologists working with a Swedish researcher.  Basically, the pressure drop intensifies the storm quickly.  The farther north the storm develops the smaller the pressure drops required.  The included the word “bomb” because these storms are quite fierce.  So basically, we are expecting a big-ass storm.  Didn’t we used to just classify all these kinds of winter storms as blizzards?

While weather forecasting has improved, there seems to be a recent history of predicting cataclysmic, cyclonic, epic, bomb-like, winter storms days in advance that turned out to be duds, big nothings.  There have been predictions of several feet of snow that resulted in a dusting or maybe a lame inch or two.  Has global warming made the forecasting less predictable?  Certainly, there is probability involved in the forecasts.  The is also the possibility that local news might just exaggerate a bit, days in advance, to draw viewership?  I know I have watched more local news in the past two days than I have all year.

I feel cheated when a winter blast that was predicted doesn’t happen.  I look forward to such storms.  There is something Zhivagoesque about the hunkering down while the snow falls silently or in a blowing rage.  There is something special about going out after the storm and surveying the pristine white blanket before cars, footprints, and grit make it lesser. 

So, I hope, come tomorrow, it is a good storm for all those reasons.  I also hope it doesn’t disrupt holiday travel too much.  We are expecting family from Boston to fly in on Christmas Eve.  We shall see.

I am writing this on the Winter Solstice which adds a bit of serendipity to this all.