Bomb Cyclone

Why in News?

• A Bomb cyclone has recently hit the United States and Canada, which triggered road accidents that results in the death of more than 30 people.

Highlights

• A bomb cyclone is a large, intense midlatitude storm that has low pressure at its center, weather fronts and an array of associated weather, from blizzards to severe thunderstorms to heavy precipitation.
• Bomb cyclones put forecasters on high alert because they can produce significant harmful impacts.
• Storms form when a mass of low-pressure air (warm air mass) meets a high-pressure mass (cold air mass). The air flows from high pressure to low, creating winds.
• It occurs when a midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars over 24 hours.
• A millibar measures atmospheric pressure.
• This quickly increases the pressure difference, or gradient, between the two air masses, therefore making the winds stronger.
• The formation of this rapidly strengthening weather system is a process called bombogenesis
• Hurricanes tend to form in tropical areas and are powered by warm seas. For this reason, they’re most common in summer or early fall, when seawater is warmest.
• Bomb cyclones generally occur during colder months because cyclones occur due to cold and warm air meeting.
• During the summer, there’s generally not much cold air across the atmosphere; this means a bomb cyclone is much less likely to occur.
• Hurricanes form in tropical waters, while bomb cyclones form over the northwestern Atlantic, northwestern Pacific and sometimes the Mediterranean Sea.