It’s the one thing everyone, no matter where they live or what they do, cares about: the weather. Heat, cold, rain, snow, ice and everything in between. It can impact your daily routine and make you alter your plans; even take your life. Naturally, we all will talk weather from time to time. But are you using the proper terms when doing so?
Many people will pick up a term from a blog/tweet/TV show and use it without really understanding the true meaning. I’ll mention several popular terms, words and/or phrases that you might be using incorrectly to describe the weather around you.
TORNADO
Let’s start with this one first, since it’s something that happens a lot in this part of the world. The actual definition for a tornado, as established by the National Weather Service, is: a violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground.
There are two key things from that definition to point out. The first: violently rotating. A lot of times we can see little swirls of dust or leaves go by us. By no means is that a tornado, although some may believe they’ve seen one if enough dust is stirred up.
The second part is most critical: in contact with the ground. Many times what people see is a funnel cloud. That column of wind MUST touch the ground for it to be considered a tornado. But remember, you may not see the textbook “condensation funnel” (think Hollywood movies) like this:
Watch for debris to be swirling on the ground. Then you know you’ve got yourself a tornado. For example, look at this picture. This is a tornado, but not the classic look we are used to seeing:
HEAT LIGHTNING
Sorry to burst your bubble, but this one just flat out doesn’t exist. Sure, in the summertime you can see lightning in the distance but hear nothing. That’s because light can travel much farther than sound. After all, we can see the sun and it’s millions of miles away. But we don’t always hear the thousands of airplanes that fly a few miles above our heads every day.So the next time you’re standing outside and see soundless flashes of light in the distant sky, that’s just regular old lightning.
BOMBOGENESIS
A term that has jumped into Internet articles in the last year and caught many by surprise. The hook on this word is “bomb” no doubt.
The definition is: when the surface pressure of an area of low pressure (a storm) drops 24 millibars or more within 24 hours. This would indicate the storm is deepening, or getting stronger. It will rapidly draw air into the center of the storm and create stronger lift in the atmosphere.
Depending on where the storm is set up, this could lead to high snowfall rates. This phenomenon actually happens a lot in the fall to winter months as air masses of high contrast collide. More often than not, it occurs over the ocean waters. Powerful Nor’easters are a good example.
BLIZZARD
This is a term that really gets abused. Just like tornado, there is a proper definition for a blizzard. It is defined as a winter storm that produces three things:
You must have all three otherwise it’s just a snowstorm. Sometimes it can be a very intense snowstorm.
NEXT: SEVERE STORM
Much like blizzard, this one can be thrown around a little too much. Here again there is a set criteria that must be met. You need hail 1” in diameter (about the size of a quarter) or larger OR you need winds of 58 mph or stronger.There is no rain criteria nor lightning criteria for a severe storm. You may have the most intense lightning you’ve ever seen in your life, causing the loudest thunder you've ever heard, but if that storm is not dropping hail over 1” in size or producing winds over 58 mph (50 knots), it’s not a severe storm. It’s just a really scary thunderstorm!
MONSOON
Sometimes this one is used along with severe storm. Whenever it rains really hard, some may call it a monsoon. The problem here: there is no rain event of any kind is actually a monsoon. So then, what is it? Monsoon is actually a seasonal shift in the winds in a specific geographic location: the desert in the Southwest U.S. where it’s usually very, very dry. But every year the winds shift in such a way that moisture is brought to that area in the form of heavy thunderstorms.
Unless you live in the desert Southwest, you’ve never really been in monsoon rains before. Sorry.
LANDFALL
One is for those who live in hurricane prone areas. As many of us know, a hurricane has a center of circulation that we call the “eye”. When the eye of the storm makes its way over land, then the storm has made landfall.
You could have a massive storm, hundreds of miles wide, but if that eye does not cross over land, the storm never technically made landfall.
HAD NO WARNING
This is a phrase that is used a lot by national media to generate hype. In the spring we often hear of storms that came “without warning,” or that a storm destroyed an area which “had no warning.” More often than not, this is blatantly wrong and is the result of ignorant reporting. The National Weather Service is in charge of issuing severe weather warnings and they employ hundreds of meteorologists across the country that work around the clock to monitor storms and keep the public safe.
More often than not, a warning *was* issued, but the people did not have a proper way of receiving that warning. Or, in some cases, they ignored the warning all together.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
A term that has elbowed its way into the fold in the last few weeks of 2014. The Pineapple Express is a non-scientific term given to the narrow flow of moist air which extends from around Hawaii to the West Coast of the U.S. mainland (with it starting near Hawaii, the Pineapple moniker was tacked on). It is then forced up the sides of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, condensed into liquid and heavy rain is produced.
This flow can last for several days and usually leads to heavy rains in Washington, Oregon, and California due to the vast amount of moisture in the narrow band.
Typically, the abundant moisture is squeezed out via the orographic process (lifting) along the mountains, and doesn't make it East of the Rockies.
POLAR VORTEX
The granddaddy of them all recently. The Polar Vortex has actually never moved from the North Pole. Without getting too nerdy, there is a circulation of very cold air around the North Pole almost annually (it disappears a little bit in the summer months simply because the air at the pole is warmed). This circulation does NOT reside at ground level. Matter of fact, it’s way up in the atmosphere - over 10 miles!
However, there are times where tiny pieces of this circulation may break free and slide a little more south, latitudinally speaking. They remain way up in the atmosphere. But this shifting of air forces other regions of cold air out of place, kind of like a domino effect.
So when it gets really cold outside, you could say it’s because of the Polar Vortex, but you’re not actually *IN* the Polar Vortex. And it certainly is not a “storm.”
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There you have it, a few terms that you may have heard used the wrong. Do you have any others? Are there any terms you'd like for me to expand upon? Feel free to write me or tweet me.
