Flying cows, new words, a friend's blog fame, and the sunny skies of pre-storm New England...

Helen Hunt, Flying Cows, Tornadoes: In 1996 a mediocre film came out that brought delight to my world: Twister.

IMDB users give it a 6.2; 57% from Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic weighs in with a green 68 (Users of Metacritic also give it a 6.8).

Helen Hunt, Flying Cows, and Tornadoes; What else do you need for "mindless entertainment" as TV Guide labels this movie?

I really loved this movie back in '96, and haven't seen it since. [I worry that it might suck now that I am almost 20 years older and maybe a little more discriminating.] Nah... Helen Hunt, flying cows, tornadoes!

One of the harshest reviews comes from Barbara Shulgasser of the SF Examiner:

...So that's the plot. Big swirls of computer-generated dirt, a bickering couple and the dead certainty that the fiancee will leave and the bickerers will get back together. An exciting night out, or what? 
Anyway, after "Earthquake," "Hurricane" and "Monsoon," it takes more than a simple tornado to thrill me. I look forward to other great moments in meteorological cinema. "Drizzle," "Sleet," and the real challenge to computer jocks, "Partly Cloudy."...

I May Be a Firefighter, But...: I am not an adrenaline junkie. I have fantasized being a storm chaser. I never actually considered it as a job path, but thought I would love to be on a semi-nerdy team that runs into danger while others run away...

"Bring it on.": I have always loved adverse weather that does not hurt me. I feel guilt when I revel in a storm that I find out later hurt someone's property or person, but it does not change how excited I feel while the storm is happening. I really do love nature's way of reminding me that I am small, and only regret that the reminders are so often tragic for others...

Arm Chair Excitement: So movies about crazy weather let me safely and comfortably think about weather without the guilt of the harm that comes from them. I have so many weather related memories that are cinematic in my mind: sitting at my window on Midhurst Rd. with my father watching thunder storms roll in, getting blown over in my back yard by hurricane David in '79 (I was probably only 40-50 pds), a warm summer storm in Baltimore that produced an updraft that turned my umbrella inside out and then ripped it from my hands, jumping into snowbanks from the second floor balcony after several feet of snow was dropped in Garrett Co. MD in The Blizzard of '83, explosively splitting knotty logs in the White Mountains -20˚F on New Year's Eve in '98, and on and on and on...

So here's a partial list...

• White Squall (1996)
• Twister (1996)
• The Perfect Storm (2000)
• The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
• Eight Below (2006)

Now, moving on to language...
We love to hype things and we love to make up words. There are so many examples of trendy words, buzz words, and just plainly infuriating "must-not-use" words and phrases. But sometimes we make up hype-like words that just rock. Such is there case with weather words. Here are two of recent hype that make me happy to use, abuse, ridicule and love!

Last year the newspeople of Wether.com, CNN, Fox, and the myriad of local forecasters taught us a new term that conjured up epic columns of cold, Polar Vortices: As much as I grew to resent how often I heard the word by the end of the winter, and began to sarcastically use it for any chilly moment of the year, I never grew tired of saying the words "vortex" and "vortices" myself.

And it reminded me of "The Day After Tomorrow," which I saw on the plane returning from a wedding in Bath, England while everyone one else seemed to sleep. How could people sleep on a plane when such an extreme weather movie was available to watch?

Snark and Sarcasm: Well, today I learned a new word! Bombogenesis: It seems very exciting, a little scary, and is making me feel the rush of panic that will send me to Stop and Shop to get a months supply of burritos for my freezer along with some Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. While I am there I will try to look as calm as I can while moving my cart at over 4 MPH to the candy section to get more dark chocolate for my children to sneak when I am not looking. (I find the wrappers stuffed into the cushiness of the couch like somehow no one ever cleans there.) Lest you confuse my intent. The panic is not real, but my like of this new word (provided the news people don't wreck it) is genuine; Bombogenesis! I could write a song about it if I had any punk-rock song writing talent. So. I offer you an explanation of the term from the Weather Channel's pages:

The word sounds ominous, but in reality, the process happens fairly frequently in the world of weather.

"'Bombogenesis' follows from 'cyclogenesis,' which refers to the development of a cyclone (which, in turn, is usually synonymous with a low pressure system, or low)," writes senior meteorologist Stu Ostro.

"Bombs are so-named because of the rapidity with which they develop, which evokes explosiveness, and the power that they usually attain once they have gone through the intensification phase specified in the definition (a central pressure drop of at least 24 millibars, or 24 mbars, in 24 hours)."

So what happens when a "weather bomb" strengthens?

Wind speeds increase and precipitation can become more intense, often creating heavy snowfall and potential blizzard conditions during winter storms. Heavy snow rates can also occur during bombogenesis, which is sometimes accompanied by lightning.

This happened in February 2013, when Winter Storm Nemodropped 29 mbars within a span of 24 hours (specifically, a barometric pressure of 1000 mbars was recorded at 4 a.m. on Feb. 8, and it dropped to to 971 mbars at 4 a.m. on Feb. 9). Winter Storm Nemo ultimately "bottomed out" with a minimum barometric pressure reading of 968 mbars at 4 p.m. on Feb. 9.

In 2015, Winter Storm Iola is expected to undergo bombogenesis off the Atlantic coast, possibly impacting the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast over the weekend.

Tropical cyclones can also undergo rapid intensification, which is a particularly unnerving development especially when it occurs near landfall. An example of a tropical cyclone undergoing bombogenesis is Hurricane Charley in 2004.

GSD: A few years ago a colleague began a blog that has received over 400,000 hits to date: Greylock Snow Day. Much of the blog employs a tone of humor, but is anchored in surprisingly well reported weather. Here is a little text from the sidebar of the site:

ABOUT US

The expert weather predictors at Greylocksnowday have been forecasting the likelihood of snow days since the Blizzard of 1978. In that time, we have correctly predicted delays, early dismissals, and full snow days at an amazing 97.65% rate.

DISCLAIMER

Greylocksnowday is only a free service and assumes no legal responsibility for any zeroes you may receive on a botched Snow Day prediction. Users of this site are responsible for their own actions. Any disgruntled users should shake their fists at the Snow Gods and pray harder next time.

Perhaps Bombogenesis will make it into a GSD entry soon... before everyone heads off to the market to get their "bread and milk!"