Bomb cyclone updates indicate that 12 people have been confirmed dead from record-breaking temperatures caused by what experts are now calling “bombogenesis,” a low pressure area with significant decline within 24 hours.
According to NDTV, a dozen people have died of the unusually cold weather in the United States that threatens to bury the New England coast under 6 to 12 inches of snow within 24 hours between Thursday and Friday.
Based on the report, the death toll includes a 27-year-old woman who was found lifeless along the shore of Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. Identified as Lindsey Klima, authorities believe that the victim reportedly wandered outside to smoke a cigarette when she might have fallen along the shoreline and succumbed to the bitter cold.
Aside from Klima, five other Wisconsin residents reportedly passed away during the severe weather condition while two others were reported dead from Missouri and North Dakota. In Texas, four people have died, including two homeless people whose living condition and exposure to the freezing weather may have contributed to their deaths.
Classes and government offices have been suspended in several states in the U.S., particularly across the Florida Panhandle.
According to BBC News, the country is already enduring 10 days of unusually freezing weather and is expecting the worst as experts forecast a “bomb cyclone,” a term which was only recently coined to unofficially represent what scientists dub as the “explosive cyclogenesis.”
Get ready for explosive intensification. The process is beginning now. pic.twitter.com/mtjCVwcbLz
— NY NJ PA Weather (@nynjpaweather) January 3, 2018
Contrary to what many believe, “bomb cyclone” is not the actual name of the storm that is wreaking havoc in the nation. Popular Science clarified that the storm raking the East Coast of the U.S. is actually named “Grayson.”
Explaining the phenomenon, BBC Weather experts explain that a bomb cyclone occurs when the central pressure in a low-pressure area drops by 24 millibars within 24 hours. Violently strong winds are expected to develop around the system and could cause severe damage to infrastructure and flora in the affected area. It is also an event that is otherwise known as “bombogenesis.”
A report from CNN compared the impending freeze forecasted by weather experts to be colder than the temperature in Mars, Earth’s neighboring planet where scientists recorded a negative 2 degrees Fahrenheit at its hottest.