The cause and impacts of the major winter storm in the Northeast United States
The Northeast United States and much of the East Coast are recovering from a historic and paralyzing winter storm today. The system hit the coast with hurricane-force winds, blinding whiteouts, and record-breaking snow totals, bringing travel and daily life to a standstill for many.
The numbers for snow totals, power outages, and travel delays are staggering. For parts of the region, areas are buried under one to three feet of snow. Providence, Rhode Island, shattered its record, measuring nearly 38 inches. Other areas, such as North Kingstown, Rhode Island, and Somerset, Massachusetts, recorded 36 inches, while Central Islip, New York, North Stonington, Connecticut, and Lyndhurst, New Jersey, all measured 30-31 inches.
The heavy, wet snow and 80-mile-per-hour wind gusts knocked out power to more than 450,000 customers at the storm's peak, and more than 10,000 flights were grounded nationwide. This not only caused impacts to areas in the East Coast and in the Northeast United States, but it also had a ripple effect for travelers across the country, even for individuals trying to fly east out of Central Missouri.
This was all caused by a system known as a Nor'easter. This is a strong low-pressure system that forms within 100 miles east or west of the Atlantic Coast and intensifies near New England. It is often characterized by heavy rain or snow, high winds, and coastal flooding. There are usually only a few per year, but when they occur, widespread impacts like these can be observed. In this setup, it was perfect for major winter impacts, as freezing Arctic air was pushed by this system into the south. It crashed into warm, moist air from the Atlantic and mixed into heavy winter precipitation.
This wasn't the only reason this system was so widespread and impactful, though. This was a "bomb cyclone," and it happens through a process called bombogenesis. For a storm to "bomb out", its central pressure must drop by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours. That's similar to going from a category 1 hurricane with winds of 74-95 mph to a category 3 hurricane, with winds of 111-129 mph at the storm's most intense portion. This rapid deepening acts like a giant atmospheric vacuum, explosively intensifying the winds and precipitation rates. As airflow rises up and out through the low-pressure system, new air must fill in at the surface, leading to strong surface winds.
Due to all these factors combining, it led to a very violent system, violent enough to create its own hurricane-like eye on satellite. This also resulted in areas experiencing what is known as "thundersnow", which is a rare phenomenon where the upward motion of the air is so intense that it creates lightning inside a snowstorm or blizzard. This only occurs in less than 1% of all snowstorms, and when it occurs, it can sometimes not even be reported due to the snow muffling the sound of thunder, making it more of a low rumble rather than a sharp clap.
The core of the storm and its impacts have now moved out of the Northeast United States, moving toward Canada, but the multi-state cleanup and recovery process is just in its beginning stages.
