can you give us a sense of the bigger picture and how this storm is moving? yeah, so the storm started last night as a small cluster of clouds of the coast of florida. it moved rapidly north east, developing and fuelled by the powerful contrast between this arctic air mass it was 5a below zero fahrenheit up in quebec a couple of days ago and the cold air is moving south, smashing into this rich tropical moisture coming up from the bahamas and that is how you re able to get this prolific snow to accumulate here in parts of coastal massachusetts. the storm actually stalled out its motion a little bit after moving really quickly yesterday and that is how we have been able to get the snow to accumulate for so many hours today, prolonging the impacts from this historic blizzard. we ve heard this phrase bomb cyclone or bombogenesis storm, can you tell us what that means? yeah, so that s a term that means the storm s pressure, it has to do with how fast
that was the situation on the coast on cape cod earlier, with that weather watcher being knocked over by the conditions. i ve been speaking to jack sillin, another weather watcher, who has been out braving the blistering conditions in cape cod. he explained what s been happening there. it s about 15 degrees here in south dennis, massachusetts. that s not how we started the day though, we started with a temperature around 32, we had the wet, heavy snow that stuck to the trees and power lines, that is why you are seeing so many power outages across cape cod where places like boston or worcester which may have gotten more snow don t necessarily have the power impact. but now it is cold, the snow is fluffy so it s just blowing around, hopefully we can get the power grid back up and running fairly soon. so, 15 fahrenheit, it s about minus nine degrees celsius for those of us who talk new money. can you give us a sense of the bigger picture and how this storm is moving? the storm started las
this storm actually deepened 42 millibars in the last 2a hours, meaning it is nearly double the criteria of a bomb cyclone, so it is a very, very powerful storm. and what kind of threat does this storm pose? quite a lot. we started out as i mentioned with the wet, heavy snow clinging to trees and power lines, so we have power outage issues. that s obviously dangerous as the temperatures are dropping tonight, lots of people without heat and electricity. a little bit further to the west, and now that we re getting the colder air, we re worried about blowing snow, significantly reducing visibility, making travel extremely treacherous. even if you didn t get a whole lot of snow, only 6 12 inches, you can get drifts of several feet, over a metre of drifts, and that is making travel extremely treacherous. and then of course now the cold air is coming in, temperatures are going to be dipping into the single digits tonight with wind chills well below 0 fahrenheit, that is dangerous cold so if
by strong winds, flood warnings have been issued as the storm moves northwards. with frigid, potentially life threatening temperatures overnight, officials are urging people to stay indoors until the storm passes. this is what is the dangerousness we are talking about, we re expecting temperatures in the single digits tonight and into tomorrow morning, and this is when frostbite kicks in. look at how serious that can be. so, take this very seriously. the worst of the snowfall is almost over but the dangers posed by the extreme conditions will linger, with a huge cleanup operation likely to last several days. peter bowes, bbc news. one of the areas worst affected by the storm is cape cod, in massachusetts, where some meteorologists have been to measure the weather.
the storm is intensifying. the intensity of a storm is measured by its minimum central pressure, barometric pressure. if the storm s pressure drops more than 2a millibars in 2a hours at considered meteorologically a bomb cyclone. this storm actually deep and 42 millibars in the last 2a hours, meaning it is nearly double the criteria of a bomb cyclone, so it is a very, very powerful storm. and what kind of threat does this storm pose? quite a lot. as i mentioned, we started out with the wet, heavy snow clinging to trees and power lines, so we have power outage issues. that s obviously dangerous as the temperatures are dropping tonight, lots of people without heat and electricity. a little bit further to the west, and now that we re getting the colder air, you re worried about blowing snow, significantly reducing visibility, making travel extremely treacherous. even if you didn t get a whole lot of snow, maybe only six to 12 inches, you can get drifts of several feet, over a metre of dri