As the Bay Area braces for an atmospheric river-fueled rainstorm this weekend, a potentially stronger system is on the horizon next week — one that could meet the criteria for a bomb cyclone and bring widespread damaging winds.
While the term “bomb cyclone” may be generalized as a buzzword for a strong storm, there is a meteorological threshold for reaching that classification.
If the central barometric pressure of a storm drops rapidly enough, it meets the criteria for a bomb cyclone. At San Francisco’s latitude, the threshold for “bombogenesis” is a central pressure drop of 17 millibars or greater in 24 hours…