The clocks have just done their spring-forward thing, it’s staying light longer, and spring break is on the horizon, but no one seems to have told the weather that winter is over.
A so-called bomb cyclone is about to bring rain, snow, flooding, and possibly hurricane-force winds to a huge swath of the United States from North Dakota to Texas. Blizzard warnings were put into effect from northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming across western Nebraska and southwest South Dakota, according to the National Weather Service. Basically, don’t leave the house until June.
A bomb cyclone is when a winter storm undergoes “bombogenesis,” which sounds like what happened to Basic Instinct 2 but is actually when the barometric pressure falls very quickly, resulting in weather so bad that you will actually want to stay indoors and watch Basic Instinct 2. “The heavy snow and visibility near zero will create extremely dangerous travel conditions, and power outages are also possible,” according to the National Weather Service.
The storm is expected to hit its peak on Wednesday and more than 1,000 flights have been canceled, according to FlightAware, primarily at the Denver International Airport, where a blizzard warning is in effect, and which is a major hub or base for Southwest, United, and Frontier.
We’ve rounded up a few ways to monitor the storm’s progress:
- Follow along at NOAA’s weather prediction center
- The NOAA Weather Radar Live app lets you track multiple locations at once, so you can see the storm’s progress in Sioux Falls or Denver.
- The Weather Channel is all over this online, on its app, and on the air (sorry, cord-cutters, you may not be able to watch).
- Download the free AccuWeather app to receive the latest wind advisories for your area and see exactly how windy it will get.
- The WeatherBug app delivers real-time alerts and forecasts using localized GPS data.
- Real weather nerds will want to download Radarscope, an app built for meteorologists and advanced beginner weather enthusiasts. It features NEXRAD Level 3 and “super resolution” radar data, which is the best detail available for smartphones.
A glimpse at Denver TV news in advance of the #BombCyclone: pic.twitter.com/nLBkGJmBU7
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) March 12, 2019
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