It’s a snow day today, but it’s a Sunday, so it’s not like we have to be somewhere or have deadlines to meet. It’s good not to have to be on the road today with blowing winds, freezing rain and then snow on top of it all. I hope that all of you travelling today have a safe and happy journey.

For me it’s a day to clean, wrap some presents, do some laundry, match some socks and muse about the mysteries of the world.

For example where do all those single socks go? Are they eaten by the dryer? Are they under the bed? I know my children’s socks have been “borrowed” by their roommates. (I’ve seen the evidence). Is it the dog?

Why does my husband keep his fishing rods in the dining room? Are there fish nearby? Is this a farm(river) to table – environmentally friendly – 100 mile diet – type of thing? This is unfathomable. I have yet to be brought fish for dinner.

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Why does the weather channel keep talking about a BOMB CYCLONE? Is it the end of the world?

Last year for the first time I heard the term BOMB CYCLONE. A frightening term, it stopped me in my tracks. It was on the TV news of course, and picked up by my internet newsfeed. I heard it again last week as a forecast for the American Thanksgiving weekend, and yesterday about our weather here today in Ontario.

I know the weather is going to be terrible and it is now! It’s hailing and raining and blowing! I believe it’s going to freeze later in the day and into tomorrow. But I wouldn’t call it a bomb. I wouldn’t call it explosive. And a cyclone – isn’t that like a hurricane only south of the equator? Is this just something the Weather Channel cooked up to increase ratings?

Apparently the term explosive cyclogenesis is the term that Bomb Cyclone is derived from. The terms weather bomb, meteorological bomb. bombogenesis and explosive development have all been used. I think that Bomb Cyclone seems to be the best headline though.

Is this term new? Looking through the weather news, I see the term or similar terms used to describe weather in 2005(regarding NW Atlantic), 2011 (December 2011 – UK) and 2013(March 2013 – UK).

Apparently the term was first used in a paper published in 1980 by professor from McGill University with a scientist from MIT. According to McGill’s John Gyakam – “When Fred Sanders and I introduced that term in the early 1980s, the Europeans actually complained that ‘bomb’ was kind of an offensive term. You know, it makes you think of war,” he said. “So Fred Sanders’s response was, ‘So why are you using the term ‘front’?”

The paper can be found here: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/1520-0493%281980%29108%3C1589%3ASDCOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2

I don’t think the term is necessarily offensive, but it’s definitely and over-dramatization of some nasty nasty weather. There was clearly no cyclone, and there was definitely nothing explosive.

And finally, why does the snowplow insist on travelling up our short steep hill and getting stuck each time. Is it just to entertain me? Would the laws of physics prevent him from going downhill first? I am sorry by the way that I can’t seem to upload the video of the snowplow sliding sideways backwards down the hill. It’s a regular occurrence so I’ll get my camera ready for the next time.

Happy Bomb Cyclone Snow Day and travel safely.