A major snowstorm affects the eastern United States and Quebec between Friday evening and Sunday morning. The phenomenon is called a “weather bomb”.
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A very deep depression is rising from the south of the ocean towards the American east coast and will cause major disruption for the 45 million Americans concerned. With heavy accumulations of snow in 24 hours, wind worthy of a category 1 hurricane, and a risk of coastal submersion, the Kenan storm is part of what meteorologists Americans refer to as ” cyclone bomb », or weather bomb in French. Why such a name ? Because the depression goes up along the coast by widening very quickly, causing its atmospheric pressure to drop by at least 24 hp in the space of a day, the necessary condition to speak of a “bomb”.
This dizzying fall of pressure could go down to 965 hp on Saturday and be accompanied by very violent weather from North Carolina to Maine, on the coastal cities of Philadelphia, New York, Boston or Portland: up to 60 centimeters of snow locally, or even more depending on the exact trajectory of the storm. These snowfalls will be accompanied by a wind of more than 115 km/h, generating a veritable blizzard paralyzing traffic and airports, and waves could submerge the coasts during the tide high Saturday. Bad weather will then move up in eastern Quebec over the weekend.
Combined with polar cold descending to Florida, Kenan could be the strongest winter storm of the winter for the east coast of the United States.
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