The first known usage of the term “bomb cyclone,” according to Merriam-Webster, was in 1987- born out of an 1980 research paper in which meteorologists were trying to describe the intensity of non-summer storms.

The ingredients needed to create this change in pressure are cold, dry air moving from north to south and moist, warm air coming up from the tropics when these two fronts clash, a storm is born. And this precise moment where the pressure drops dramatically, turning a winter storm into a bomb cyclone, is known as bombogenesis. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Bomb cycloneįront and center of many North American minds’ right now is the Christmas “bomb cyclone” which the National Weather Service has dubbed a “ once in a generation winter storm.” Not to be confused with a regular Nor’easter (simply a storm along the East Coast), a bomb cyclone is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a powerful, rapidly intensifying storm associated with a sudden and significant drop in atmospheric pressure.” Specifically, 24 millibars in 24 hours, according to the U.S. So, from “bomb cyclones” and “cold dunkelflautes” to “flash droughts” and “firenados” these are the weird and wacky, sometimes wonderful, sometimes wretched, weather terms you should know. And we’re figuring how to talk about these changes in real time.

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