A massive winter storm that bears the monicker “bomb cyclone” is expected to make landfall over the eastern United States early Tuesday. Along the northeastern coastline from New England to the Carolinas, dangerous coastal flooding is expected and power outages are expected. Around 50,000 people have already lost power in Massachusetts, with further outages anticipated. The storm, which will encompass the Gulf Coast to eastern New England, has already wreaked havoc over the northern Plains, where blizzard conditions with gusts of up to 90 miles per hour have paralyzed traffic and forced schools and businesses to close.
Bing Thom, a reporter with The Boston Globe, has more on the meteorological terms:
A bomb cyclone: Mal and Joseph Borg had hoped their vacation to New Orleans would be just a trip to a five-star hotel; instead, after their car lost power, the couple had to make the long trip from Freeport, Maine, to New Orleans on foot. “It’s horrible,” Joseph Borg, 58, said. “It is definitely a bomb.” Mal Borg, his wife, was taking comfort in what her sport-utility vehicle was running. The car at the family vacation site in Freeport was a Nissan Rogue. “We just dragged ourselves in,” she said.
“Those of us up north who have yet to experience a bomb-cyclone season – pardon my pun – remember which words to use before and after they describe nature’s destructive force: freeze. Brace. Snow. Hail. D.O.A. Hurricane force gusts. Beach. Swollen. Seas. Wet. Wetter.”