Last night a “bomb cyclone” hit New England, causing winds up to 90mph and setting low-pressure records for October.
[Observed Wind Gusts] It was a wild night with wind gusts up to 90 mph in Provincetown #MA! Here is a map of other observed wind gusts across #RI #CT pic.twitter.com/f6ozxZ3tgE
— NWS Boston (@NWSBoston) October 17, 2019
Weather.com reports of the storm:
A bomb cyclone lashing the Northeast has left over a half-million residents without power, downed numerous trees and set new October low-pressure records.
The intense storm has left over 550,000 customers without power from Maine to North Carolina to Ohio, according to poweroutages.us.
Trees and powerlines have been downed in at least seven eastern states, particularly in southeast New England, where wind gusts up to 90 mph were clocked overnight. Sustained Category 2 hurricane-force winds were measured atop Mt. Washington, New Hampshire early Thursday morning.
The Northeast coastal storm easily met the criterion for a “bomb cyclone”, a term some meteorologists use to classify surface lows whose pressure drops by at least least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less. This storm’s central pressure plummeted 30 millibars in just 15 hours from late Wednesday morning to early Thursday morning.
As residents of California recover from the man-made power outage disaster that has wreaked havoc in the state, citizens of New England are fighting Mother Nature’s wrath in the form of a bomb cyclone.
Anyone caught in these unfortunate circumstances without an adequate backup plan for water, power, communications and in the case of the Californians, a wildfire escape plan, could be in for a world of trouble.
Whether a disaster is caused by humans or nature, you must have a plan to evacuate. Putting physical distance between you and a disaster is the first-best way to keep your family safe.
