Perhaps you noticed that Thursday's big winter storm hasn’t been billed as just any old storm, but as a “bomb cyclone” or a “bombogenesis." The term has been all over Facebook and Twitter feeds, and it got me wondering — who put the 'bomb' in the bombogenesis?
Little did I know that my search for the origins of the term would lead just down the road to MIT and professor of atmospheric science Kerry Emanuel. Emanuel was a longtime colleague and close friend of another MIT professor, the late Fred Sanders, who passed away in 2006.
"Fred Sanders was the preeminent synoptic meteorologist of his generation — without question," said Emanuel.
And what exactly is a synoptic meteorologist?
"A research meteorologist who primarily uses observation as a route to understanding how the atmosphere works," he explained.
Now, anyone who was alive in the late 1970s will remember that forecasting was not quite what it is today.
More from The Curiosity Desk
"The weather prediction models of that era often failed to forecast the true intensity of these events," said Emanuel.
Emanuel says Sanders wondered if there might be something happening in the atmosphere that wasn’t being accounted for. So, he and his research assistant went to work observing and studying, and in 1980 released a groundbreaking paper.
"They surmised — correctly — that these monster storms were physically a little different, not just a bigger variety of your garden variety winter storm, but a little bit different," said Emanuel.
Different, because in addition to the contrast in atmospheric temperatures that power most winter storms, they were also getting fueled by heat from the ocean — like a regular storm that is part hurricane. Or, in Emanuel's words, "like a propeller driven airplane that has a rocket booster to help it take off."
Sanders described it kind of like a storm supercharged by a bomb, which is the term he coined. That term was quickly adopted in weather circles and, increasingly now, in popular parlance.
For you true weather nerds, "bombogenesis" officially occurs when a storm’s pressure drops more than 24 millibars in 24 hours, and the resulting storm is known as a bomb cyclone. And if that term, "bomb," has you shaking in your winter boots a little, just remember one thing.
"This fits into a history of meteorologists borrowing military terms," said Emanuel. "The most prominent example is a front, right? Cold front, warm front. The military was using that term long before meteorologists."
So, as we endure mother nature’s latest bomb cyclone, take a moment to remember Fred Sanders – not just for giving us a cool term for our Twitter and Facebook feeds, but for uncovering a phenomenon that helped today’s weather people let us know that this one was coming.
