‘Bombogenesis’ exceeds pre-storm hype, January thaw in sight

The east coast weather bomb sucked up copious amounts of oxygen in the national media this week. Yes, there's been plenty of hype around the storm. But the storm's meteorology appears to be exceeding the pre-storm hype.

Intense Bombogenesis

The incredibly rapid pressure drop of 59 millibars in 24 hours may make this one of the most rapidly intensifying east cost winter storms on record. According to NOAA storms deepening this rapidly only occur every 25 to 30 years.

The storm's central pressure appears to have plummeted to 951 millibars today. That's the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane force scale.

Record tidal surge?

We await final analysis, but it appears the storm surge in Boston drove tidal surges to near record levels.

Storm surge: Significant coastal flood event

It looks like this will go down as one of the most severe coastal flood events for parts of New England. The images pouring into social media today are incredible.

Here's an interesting write up from Wired on the bigger picture with this latest bomb cyclone. I was asked to provide some perspective on this event for this piece.

Sun or clouds?

There were no shades of gray today as the cloud line bisected the Twin Cities.

Minnesota: January thaw in sight?

Minnesota's deep freeze continues Friday. But temperature begin to moderate late Saturday. A pacific front blows in Sunday, and temperatures will surge into the upper 20s on a Seattle breeze. NOAA's numbers below could be conservative for early next week. The Euro model hints at 30s.

Pacific breeze

The week of January 15-20 looks potentially mild. Jet stream winds will blow from Seattle instead of the Yukon for a change.

If this pattern verifies it will produce a string of mild days in about two weeks. Highs in the upper 30s and low 40s ahead?

Stay tuned.