Bomb cyclone: US braces for winter storm, thousands of flights cancelled, highway blocked

A rare phenomenon called Bomb Cyclone is expected to hit the US as the country is facing an extreme climate of late. As per news reports, the storm, due to the temperatures expected to hit as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit,  has badly hit the Christmas travels in the country as thousands of flights have been cancelled and highways have been blocked. US President Joe Biden on Friday warned Americans planning to visit their family or friends during Christmas to leave as earliest as possible, as the storm has already started taking a toll in a couple of places.

The entire US is experiencing extreme cold, heavy snow, and intense wind this week due to an Arctic blast, and authorities expect travel disruption during and after Christmas. Most of the US is anticipated to feel below-average temperatures through the middle and end of the week because of the cold air travelling from the Arctic.

President Biden said in a statement, “It’s dangerous and threatening, it’s really very serious weather, and it goes from Oklahoma all the way to Wyoming and Maine. ... So I encourage everyone to please heed local warnings.”

Bomb Cyclone 

A bomb cyclone gets created when the air of different air masses (cold, dry) comes together. When the warm air rises, it makes a cloud system which lowers the air pressure and forms a storm circulating counterclockwise around the low-pressure area. A bomb cyclone is a mid-latitude storm in which the central pressure drops fast at one millibar per hour for at least 24 hours. The millibar readings can change depending on where the storm is forming.

The temperature may drop by more than 11 degrees Celsius in just a few hours, and the air pressure is predicted to drop from 1003 millibars to 968 millibars indicated by the National Weather Service in the US.

The temperature could drop to a dangerous low far below zero, which will be extreme enough to frostbite within minutes. A bomb cyclone is characterised by cold winds, which are expected to pick up. The weather system expects a snowstorm through the Midwest near the end of the week.

This life-threatening storm is expected to hit everyone east of the Rocky Mountains and about two-thirds of the country. However, most of the West Coast will be shielded from the cold, and the Arctic front is expected to pass east and south through Florida. These extreme conditions are not likely to hit the East Coast. Some spots around the Great Lakes may see upwards of a foot of snow by Friday, the National Weather Service predicted.

Prediction made by experts suggests that shortly after Christmas, the temperature will return to normal again, moving from west to east and likely to remain close to normal through the end of the year.

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