What Is Bomb Cyclone? Check Tracker, Impact And Latest Updates As The Storm Batters Northwestern US

Bomb Cyclone: A powerful storm battered the northwestern region of the United States, injuring many and killing at least two. The bomb cyclone, with tropical-storm-force winds of 80 kilometres per hour and gusts around 110 kilometres per hour battered the northwestern US overnight and wreaked havoc across the region. The storm system, considered a “bomb cyclone” – which happens when a cyclone rapidly intensifies – started to hit the region on Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, authorities sounded hurricane-impact wind warnings with California and the Pacific Northwest seeing the largest “atmospheric river” of the season. 

The storm that hit Washington State on Wednesday caused at least two deaths and injured two others, according to a Reuters report.

A woman on Tuesday passed away when a tree fell on her at a homeless encampment in Lynnwood, which is located north of Seattle. Another woman was killed when a tree fell on her home in Bellevue, officials were quoted as saying by the news agency.

Two more people were injured after a tree fell on their trailer in Maple Valley.

As per the Reuters report, over 3 lakh homes and business offices across Washington, Oregon and Northern California faced power outages on Wednesday night. This was down from 6 lakh homes and businesses earlier.

In Canada's Pacific coast province of British Columbia, provincial electricity provider BC Hydro said that around 2.25 lakh customers faced power cuts on Tuesday night.

With the falling of several trees and power lines, residents in western Washington were urged to stay home by the Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue service. Schools across the region also cancelled classes or postponed them on Wednesday.

The Oregon Department of Transportation said that Interstate 5 at the California-Oregon border was shut due to heavy snowfall, the report mentioned. 

The National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, predicted that coastal Northwest California will face life-threatening flooding on Thursday, with expectations of rock slides and debris flows.

Over the next few days, the bomb cyclone will stall over Northern California according to the Reuters report quoting Weather Prediction Center meteorologist Rich Otto. With the storm peaking on Thursday, rainfall of up to 12 to 16 inches till Friday and heavy, wet snow of up to 3 feet in the mountains per hour were expected. 

A bomb cyclone, also known as a bombogenesis, is a rapidly intensifying midlatitude (the latitudes between the tropics and polar regions) cyclone that strengthens over a 24-hour period, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This happens when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, for example, warm air over ocean water.

An atmospheric river is a long, narrow region in the atmosphere like rivers, which “transport most of the water vapour outside of the tropics”, as per NOAA.

 “While atmospheric rivers can vary greatly in size and strength, the average atmospheric river carries an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Exceptionally strong atmospheric rivers can transport up to 15 times that amount. When the atmospheric rivers make landfall, they often release this water vapour in the form of rain or snow,” according to the NOAA.

They are common in the northwestern US, especially during fall and winter months.

Here's the expected path of the Bomb Cyclone storm as shown by windy.com.

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