"Bomb" Explodes Off Coast Of Alaska; Fallout Starting to Affect U.S. (Cold, Snow)

Satellite view of the record breaking intense
storm over the Bering Sea.  

An enormous bomb exploded in the Bering Sea in the past couple of days, in that space of stormy ocean between Alaska and Russia.

Don't worry, the bomb wasn't Russia and Vladimir Putin finally getting to annoyed with the United States that he wants to start a war with us. Putin's still busy in the Ukraine.

This bomb was meteorological, a storm that development wicked fast and became arguably the strongest storm on record in the far northern Pacific Ocean. (The Bering Sea is part of the Pacific Ocean.)

Meteorologists really do call some storms bombs. For the precise science geeks out there, a bomb is a storm whose air pressure falls by 24 millibars within 24 hours.

For the people out there who don't dwell on things like millibars, suffice it to say that a bomb is a storm that goes really quickly from nothing special to a real monster of a blow.

Back to those millibars for a minute. The air pressure at the center of the storm late Friday night and early Saturday morning local time bottomed out at 924 millibars, the strongest yet measured on record in the Bering Sea, says weather historian Christopher Burt. 

Of  course, it's hard to precisely measure storms out in the ocean, and it used to be much harder in the days before satellites and that sort of thing, so there might have been stronger storms in the Bering Sea in the past.

In general, the lower the air pressure in a storm, the stronger the storm is.  For comparison's sake, the air pressure in Burlington, Vermont Sunday morning, with near normal weather condition, no particular storms or high pressure systems in the area, was 1009 millibars.

This map, via David Hulen on Twitter, show
no cargo ships in the red circle, where the
intense storm is. The yellow circle shows
cargo ships near Alaska waiting for the
storm to move or dissipate before they
head out on their journey.  

Superstorm Sandy in 2012 had a central pressure of 946 millibars when it made landfall in New Jersey, the second lowest air pressure of any storm that hit the East Coast north of Cape Hatteras. (The Great Long Island Hurricane of 1938 is Number 1)

We all know what a huge mess that was.

The huge storm in the Bering Sea might be in the Pacific ocean, but there is nothing pacific under this monster system.

There were forecasts of 50 foot waves, though none that high have officially been measured yet. Winds no doubt reached hurricane force.

Luckily, not a lot of people live in coastal areas near the storm, so it's not causing widespread destruction.

So why should we care about a big bad storm directly affecting not that many people?  First of all, it's cool. It's a record-breaking storm, for gawd's sake.

Second of all, this big storm will affect you if you're living anywhere in the eastern half of the United States.

No, hurricane force winds and 50 foot waves are not going to hit your house, so relax.  But as I pointed out the other day, this storm is affecting the jet stream, causing a big ridge of high pressure in western North America, which in turn is causing a big southward dip in the jet stream to form in the eastern halves of Canada and the United States.

When that happens, we get big cold spells. Starting now in the Northern Plains and by midweek or so on the East Coast, it's going to turn wintry cold and stay that way for awhile.

Winter storm warnings are flying from eastern Montana, through parts of the Dakotas, into Minnesota, including Minneapolis and northern Wisconsin as a storm rides along the cold front bringing the chill.

Temperatures in parts of Montana are expected to fall into the teens below zero this week, with wind chills making things feel much colder.

It still looks like most of the eastern half of the United States is going to stay colder than normal for the most part for at least two or three weeks, maybe longer.

We have, in part, the big bomb that went off in the Bering Sea to thank for our early winter.

East Coast Snow, Cold Getting The Attention But Real Weather Story Is In California

I'm sure you've seen on the news the images of cold snaps, sudden snowstorms and wind and subzero temperatures plaguing the East Coast.

Lake Oroville in central California this month shows
the effects of the drought. Photo from the California
Department of Water Conservation.  

That's probably in part because such things have better visuals than the real weather story going on right now: The California drought.

While the wintry weather in the eastern half of the nation is breaking a few records for temperature, snowfall and the like, it's really not unprecedented. Worse cold waves and bigger snowstorms have happened often in the past.

The California situation, though, is uncharted territory.

Some observers say parts of California have never seen a drought this bad. And there've been winter fires in areas that have never seen fires in the winter.

This is normally the heart of California's rainy season and once again, on Friday, there are alerts for the potential of forest and brush fires. This fire danger includes parts of Humbolt County in northern California, which normally this time of year is among the wettest places in the nation.

The drought has been made worse by weeks of record warm temperatures on the West Coast. What little moisture there is evaporates faster in hot, dry weather than it would if it was cooler and more humid.

Drought in California has been going on for more than a year now, and there's little sign it will break soon. There is a drought emergency there, and this could impact you. Yes, you, shivering over your warm bowl of vegetable soup while the temperature in New England drops below zero again.

This time of year, storms normally come in right after another in California, keeping the valleys wet, and more importantly, building up a big snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

That snow slowly melts in the spring and summer, sending water down to the vast agricultural fields in central California.  That's where a lot of the fruits and vegetables in the supermarket down the road come from.

So far, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is somewhere between 8 and 22 percent of normal, depending upon where you are in those mountains. That's pathetic. If it doesn't rain and snow soon, there won't be enough water to feed the farmlands.

Then prices of a wide variety of food items will go up, hurting us in the pocket book.

On top of that, there's the risk of much worse than usual fires in the summer, which could cause a lot of destruction, with it's accompanying economic loss and possible insurance rate increases.

The rainy season in California lasts until roughly the first of April. If they get a parade of unusually heavy storms in the next couple of months, the state should be able to squeak by with barely enough water.

But don't count on it. California, and other areas of the West Coast need more than a foot of rain to make up for what they've already missed out on this winter. That's on top of the several inches or more than a foot of rain that normally comes down between now and April.

The forecast for California is bad.  It might actually rain and snow a little bit next week, which would temporarily tamp down the ongoing fire threat. But the mini-storms next week, if they materialize, would be pretty small and would dump only light precipitation. These would not be the super soakers California needs by any stretch of the imagination.

So, while you're complaining about bad weather where you live in the Midwest, Southeast or New England, remember, at least there's no crushing drought.

We're uncomfortable in the East this winter, but we're not suffering, like California is, or is about to.