Day 94, Year 9: Sounded Like a ‘Bombogenesis’
Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Weather: Snow with Freezing Temps and Gale Force Winds
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
It has been fun to watch the debate over unfamiliar words entering the weather discussion. The last snow storm introduced ‘polar vortex’. This storm introduced ‘bombogenesis’. These are terms meteorologists have been using for years, but they have not worked their way into the language outside their specialized world . . . until now. Whether this was a true bombogenesis, I have no idea, but it sure ‘sounded’ like a BOMBOGENESIS! Around 7 am the wind increased to 40 plus knots, somewhere between 45 and 50 miles per hour. The sound of the wind in the rigging, the straining lines that hold us to the dock, and wind’s effect on Windbird’s plastic cover were downright scary. This continued for at least two hours, but then things settled down just a notch. The sound of 30 knots sounds relatively calm. We ventured out to meet the storm face to face and found it . . . well, cold. Tonight the temp will dip down to almost zero but at least the wind is down to just 10 to 15. So another storm has dealt its blows and we’ll prepare for the next. We stay in this deep freeze until sometime during the early morning hours of Saturday when the winds start coming from the SW causing the temperature to rise. We’ll have temperatures in the 30’s on Saturday and then Saturday night the wind will clock back to the W and temps will drop into the 20’s. It looks like it is going to be that kind of winter.
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| 140122 Day 94 Cape Cod, USA–Bombogenesis |
Mark and I stayed on the boat all day. We talked to Heather early on to find that Ollie and Jonah both had temperatures and weren’t venturing outside. But Sam was outside playing. There’s not usually as much wind inland as there is here on the water, and without the wind, the cold would have been bearable. Tomorrow Mark is off to Mass General for his CT scan. He is going to drive with Heather as Thursday is now her day at WGBH in Boston. And Ollie and I (and maybe Jonah is he still has a temperature) will stay at home and have a quiet day inside.
