Get used to a new word: 'Bombogenesis,' a Climate-Fueled weather threat on both coasts

Facebook Tweet LinkedIn

In the recent past, a new term has entered the lexicon. It is “bomb cyclone,” a global warming-fueled weather event that has hit both U.S. coasts. But do you know what its scientific name is? Probably not, because the weather forecast, for some reason, that has backed away from the scientific name.

And that term is “bombogenesis,” the most recent example of which hit the Pacific Northwest with stunning force. The phenomenon is somewhat like blizzards sometimes being “Snowmageddons,” “Snowzillas” or a “Snowpocalypse.”

In part, the non-scientific name may not only mind-boggling in itself, but also because the definition of the official term is so complicated. It is “a phenomenon or process in which there is rapid and sustained falling of barometric pressure in the center of a low-pressure system, indicative of its strengthening into a powerful storm. The storm will intensify rapidly, so quickly, in fact, that it will likely undergo bombogenesis.”

Whatever it is called, it is among the new and powerful weather categories that have become part of the American descriptions of extreme weather events. Recently, those have included the “Pineapple Express,” which brings huge volumes of water from far out in the Pacific Ocean and dumps them on America’s West Coast. And in October, weather experts identified Hurricane Milton, which wreaked havoc on Florida as a bomb cyclone.