The North American Bomb Cyclone: Suffering and Death During the Christmas Holiday Season
From 21 December 2022 onwards, a large expanse of the continental US, extending from the Great Lakes in the north to the Rio Grande in the south and stretching between east and west coasts, along with much of Canada, experienced a massive and rapidly developing winter storm, described as a “bomb cyclone” and nicknamed Winter Storm Elliott by weather forecasters. Severe winter weather was even observed along the Gulf Coast and in the Florida peninsula. The greater Buffalo region in western New York State-no stranger to harsh winters- was among the most affected areas in the nation.
As the nation froze, Winter Storm Elliott brought affected areas to a standstill. Heavy snowfall made roads impassable, while many unfortunate enough to have ventured out during a normally busy holiday season were stranded in their vehicles on streets and highways. Ambulances and fire trucks could not embark on their rescue missions, paralysing emergency response efforts. Heavy precipitation flooded several coastal towns in the northeast US. Thousands of domestic and international flights were either delayed or cancelled, leaving passengers stranded at airports. Rail and bus services were also disrupted, crippling public transportation networks. Households in the eastern US, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest were left without electricity as high winds knocked down trees which then crashed onto power lines, while surges in energy demand threatened to overwhelm electrical grids, leading to power outages. Many towns, cities, and counties opened warming centres to protect vulnerable residents from the extreme cold. Livestock and wild animals were also put at risk from the cold. The majority of deaths were caused by vehicular accidents on icy roads with poor visibility, including a 50-car pile-up on the Ohio Turnpike in Sandusky County in which four people lost their lives. A smaller number of deaths were caused by exposure leading to hypothermia, falling trees, or by the inability of ambulances to reach the seriously ill.
Rapidly deepening low-pressure systems in the mid-latitudes may lead to a bomb cyclone, in which hurricane-like winds are accompanied by heavy snowfall and freezing rain. The term bomb cyclone was first introduced in a 1980 paper in the Monthly Weather Review by MIT meteorologists Fred Sanders and John Gyakum. A bomb cyclone is produced by a rapid, explosive, drop in pressure within the centre of the storm at least 24 millibars within 24 hours, which rapidly increases the pressure gradient between the cold Polar air mass and the warmer air mass further south. An energised and unstable jet stream, at the interface of these fronts, is powered by a rapidly warming Arctic that allows the frigid Polar air mass to penetrate farther south than usual. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the bomb cyclone was “an expected effect of climate change”.
Extreme weather events, such as floods, storms, and deep snowfall can be expected during winter months, including bomb cyclones. But the superior forces of Nature can be hard to overcome-at times we are restricted to mitigating its devastating effects. While homes can be weatherproofed, emergency supplies stockpiled, vehicles made winter ready, roads gritted, and runways cleared of snow and ice, much of our critical infrastructure remains vulnerable to sub-zero temperatures and heavy snowfall. Roads, railroads, water pipes, heating pipes, sewage systems, power lines, as well as crops and livestock can all fall victim to the depredations of cold weather. Events such as Winter Storm Elliott once again demonstrate the need for continued weather planning and developing climate-resilient infrastructures in the face of an increasing likelihood of extreme weather events in the coming years.
Ashis Banerjee