From thunder ice to exploding trees to the European model, there are a lot of terms being thrown around to describe the looming winter storm. Here’s a quick glossary for all the non-meteorologists and hype wary.
is forecast to wreak havoc on numerous states in the Midwest and East over the next several days. You may have also heard a bunch of novel terms being thrown around to warn you about what’s coming, particularly on social media.
If you’re wondering what thunder ice is, why the European model is being cited by co-workers who suddenly sound like climate scientists, who Fern is supposed to be, or what differentiates frost quakes from frost crack, we’ve put together a guide to some of the lesser known vocabulary we’ve seen across the web.Perhaps you’ve already heard of thunder snow, which is when there is thunder and lightning during a snowstorm. Well, there’s also a potential for thunder ice and thunder sleet during this storm, Surface temperatures will be below freezing, allowing freezing rain and wintry precipitation. It might be in the mid-20s! But half a mile to a mile above the ground, 44 degrees. That warmer air upstairs leads to some “instability,” or thunderstorm fuel, rooted at the mid-levels. So yes, thunder/lightning will be possible! I can’t even rule out some pea-sized hail with some of the thunder-ice and thunder-sleet storms. There could be more intense ice accretion rates nearing 0.07 or 0.08 inches/hour during thunder-ice. Conversely, if it rains *too* heavily, some of the raindrops won’t be able to freeze as efficiently due to latent heat release . THUNDER-ICE is likely coming to the Mississippi River Valley on Saturday night or early Sunday. This includes east Texas, northern Louisiana, eastern/southeast Arkansas, northwest Mississippi and western Tennessee.The sudden extreme cold snap could cause trees to explode in the Midwest, according to meteorologists. It’s because the water in tree sap can rapidly expand as it freezes,, sort of like how water pipes can burst when they freeze in an unheated home. Yes, this does actually happen, and the bursting sometimes sounds like a gunshot coming from a suddenly freezing forest. EXPLODING TREES are possible in the Midwest and Northern Plains on Friday and Saturday, as temperatures are forecasted to fall 20 degrees BELOW zero!is a seismic activity, known as cryoseism, which is caused by rapid drops to subfreezing temperatures in waterlogged soil or rock. It’s highly localized and not an earthquake, but the resulting explosions can cause tremors and vibrations to be felt in the ground, or heard, nearby. Remember when we were taught in science class how ice takes up more volume than liquid water? This less density/more volume combination is like freezing a full water bottle in a freezer, then taking it out and opening it up, only to have the ice try to jump through the opening in…These are not fashion models or ways to differentiate Europe’s robust social-welfare system from America’s less robust one. The European model is a global weather model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts , which supplies meteorologists with a ten-day forecast four times a day. It is generally considered more accurate than the American model, or GFS, which was created by the National Weather Service and provides a 16-day forecast four times a day, but each respective model’s accuracy varies depending on the kind of weather event. When the two models align, that gives meteorologists more confidence in the forecast.You may already know this one. Glaze, or glazing, is another way to describe icing, or when ice storms cause a layer of ice to form on everything from roads to trees to power lines. The thicker the layer of ice, the more damage it can cause. For now it looks like the significant icing will stay to our north with the Arctic front slowing down. We will still experience a light glaze of ice late Saturday night.That pink on the map isn’t just “a little glaze.” It’s dangerous weight.A half inch can pile on several hundred pounds more.Since the winter of 2012-2013, it has been naming major winter storms that affect at least 10 million people, similar to how tropical cyclones get named. If you don’t see anyone else referring to this storm as Fern, that’s because the Weather Channel’s controversial naming protocol, which it says isn’t to hype the storms but to improve communication and warnings about them, has been largely shunned by other meteorologists and the National Weather Service. Other monikers — such as Snowtober, Snowpocalypse, and Snowmageddon — can end up becoming popular on social media and in media coverage, but that’s just an informal and ephemeral thing. Winter Storm Fern will bring heavy snow and a wintry mix to millions across the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley Saturday night into Sunday, severely impacting travel. See how the forecast has changed here.are both informal terms sometimes used by meteorologists for cold fronts that come down from the polar region. At least one meteorologist is saying there could be a Super Arctic Blast this time as well, but that doesn’t appear to be a scientific term that anyone else is using. It’s not exactly clear what “all-time historic vintage cold” means, either:that will entomb the Eastern U.S. into a frigid hellscape.This is not a meteorological term but a long-standing panic-buying phenomenon in the days preceding any major storm. There’s usually a rush on toilet paper and eggs as well, and there are always massive lines and shortages in grocery stores, along with the inevitable local news footage of the lines and shortages, along with requests from public officials to not panic-buy these items . But humans will be humans. It’s also always a good time to reshare comedian Vic Dibitetto’s old viral parody of the bread and milk pandemonium:This is what politicians and their spokespeople usually say when they end up getting caught out of town on some tropical getaway during weather disasters back home. Texas senator Ted Cruz has made this mistake numerous times, including his infamous family vacation to Cancun during a devastating winter storm in 2021.This big winter storm is forecast to impact many parts of the South, which means one way to measure its severity will be to determine how many Waffle House restaurants have closed their doors. The always-open chain restaurant is famous for its disaster-preparedness plans and for either staying open or quickly reopening amid big storms when most other businesses shut down. Thus, in 2011, thewas born as an informal metric for measuring how hard a southern community had been hit by a storm or other natural disaster. If the local Waffle House is closed, things are really bad.Manage preferences.In a series of tirades on Truth Social, the unpopular president expressed his rage at an ungrateful public by lashing out at pollsters.New polling shows once again that the young and non-white voters that helped Trump return to power are as unhappy with him as they were with Biden.The final path of the storm remains uncertain, but some models are predicting a lot of snow in the city, and the warnings have already begun.More than 50 nations were invited to Trump’s MAGA-fied U.N. Only a handful of small authoritarian-leaning nations showed up to the launch.The acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out” was originally about “Liberation Day” tariffs. Now it’s morphed into a broader Trump insult.Republicans helped pass a law demanding the full release of the files. Now they’ve lost interest in seeing it enforced.Trump announced he’s worked out the “framework” of a Greenland deal with NATO. He didn’t say if that means the U.S. will own the island.Being seen as abandoning immigration enforcement could once agan come at a high political cost. Reform may prove to be a wiser path.Trump saying he “won’t use force” to take Greenland, calling it “Iceland,” and rambling about windmills is what passes for reassuring these days.Humiliating foes by sharing their private messages is a common Trump tactic, but Emmanuel Macron is the first world leader to get this treatment.Democrats are under pressure to stand up to ICE’s excesses. But thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, their options are limited.You'll receive the next newsletter in your inbox.New York
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