This morning people on the US east coast woke up to a “bomb cyclone”, which is a powerful winter storm that acts like a snowy hurricane. The GOES-16 weather satellite operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been keeping an eye on the cyclone’s progress towards the coast. The imagery from the satellite shows that the cyclone rapidly formed east of the Carolinas and then cycled its way up toward New England.
Below is the 24-hour loop that shows the progress of the cyclone.
Here's a 24-hour @NOAA #GOES16 infrared loop showing the evolution of the deepening east coast cyclone. #blizzard pic.twitter.com/1jafoM9t30
— NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) January 4, 2018
Along with snow and strong winds, this storm is also causing instances of lighting and thunder along the coast. It is similar to the type of thunder and lighting that one might observe during a rainstorm. According to NASA, it is rare but a lighting can occur in snowstorms if the air is unstable and if there a strong current of rising air. This can cause the particles to move upwards at different speed and rate, possibly causing them to rub against each other causing a transfer of electrical charges between the particles resulting in lighting. The GOES-16 satellite has been mapping lightening it finds throughout the bomb cyclone, too.
The @NOAA #GOES16 Geostationary Lightning Mapper continues to detect #lightning flashes in heavy snow on Long Island and Southeast CT. Here are two lightning flashes at 1354 UTC. #blizzard pic.twitter.com/6C3YTG3FXK
— NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) January 4, 2018
In fact, this storm’s pressure has decreased more rapidly than most storms usually do. In the last 24 hours, it went down by 54 millibars. (To be considered a bomb cyclone, a storm must drop in pressure by 24 millibars in the same time period.) That means this cyclone’s pressure decreased by more than twice the standard criteria, and the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.
According to Oravec, the bomb cyclone is expected to peak by this afternoon and its moving pretty quickly which means that snow should become less intense by Friday at the latest.But once the storm is gone, it will still leave high winds and cold temperatures in its wake. The East Coast will be feeling the effects of this storm well into the weekend.
Leave a Reply