North America is in the grip of a record-setting cold spell that's set to culminate with the arrival of a
"bomb cyclone" along the eastern seaboard late Thursday. The cold front has delivered temperatures that haven't been seen in decades.
Already, stories about the epic cold snap have proliferated online. As we pointed out yesterday, a group of good Samaritans helped rescue a dozen elk that had crashed trough a thin patch of river ice and were in danger of freezing to death, or drowning. At the time, temperatures were below freezing across a staggering
92% of the US, with temperatures more than 20 degrees lower than their seasonal averages for this time of year.
Winter Storm Grayson, a very large and powerful winter storm is threatening the East Coast of the United States with heavy snow, intense winds, and record-setting low temperatures. Winter storm watches and warnings have been issued for many coastal regions in north Florida to Maine from Wednesday into late Thursday.
This week's storm may end up being worse than your average nor'easter. That's because meteorologists say it could produce a "bomb cyclone," otherwise known as a bombogenesis, a phenomenon that occurs when a system's central pressure drops steeply - by 24 millibars or more - in 24 hours.
Comment: See also: Hurricane force winds hit Switzerland