Denzel Eustache 
Picture taken by EOSDIS Worldview
By Denzel Eustache, Isabella Longo, and Jake Mawhinney
MAR 29, 2019
On March 13, a bomb cyclone buried southern Colorado under 45 inches of snow. According to Fox News reporters Jennifer Earl and Kaitlyn Schallhorn, a bomb cyclone is a storm that causes severe wind, devastating floods and dumps several inches of snow over a significant area. This phenomenon occurs approximately once a year.
In a phone interview with Raider Review, Meteorologist Bill Line described the recent bomb cyclone as a “strong upper level system moving east across the United States, in this case moving over the Rockies.” He also described this type of weather event as being “pretty spontaneous.” He went on to explain that “… this type of event [will] occur either in the fall or the late winter/early spring when you have clashing air masses, changing of the seasons if you will. So it’s more random, but you have the factors come together to support this type of development.”
Washington Post reporters Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow reported that on March 13 the bomb cyclone’s pressure became identical to a category two hurricane. This storm caused “…strong 78 mph winds in Dallas, 80 mph in Denver, and 97 mph in Colorado Springs.” On the same day CNN News reporters Nicole Chavez, Allie Mazurek and Judson Jones said that the bomb cyclone left a trail of devastation, resulting in about 100 vehicles being involved in an accident near Wellington, Colorado. This relentless weather phenomenon fortunately caused no casualties and few injuries were sustained.
At the time of this writing, the bomb cyclone was still progressing and moving across the Northern United States. Pennsylvania was the most recent victim of this weather phenomena. According to Accuweather.com’s Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, the bomb cyclone moved “…through many of the northern and western suburbs of Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston.” The recent bomb cyclone gained a great deal of attention due to its size and locations. Meteorologist Bill Line also told Raider Review, “Usually these types of rapid cyclogenesis occur on the east coast, but what’s anomalous about this event is that it occurred in the middle of the country.”
Slideshow: Wikimedia
