Bombogenesis and bomb cyclone

Today the East Coast of the U.S. was hit with a big snowstorm and terms like bombogenesis and bomb cyclone were all over the news and social media. They sound like made-up media terms, like snowmageddon or snowpocalypse, but they are legitimate meteorological terms.

These terms were new to me but have been in use by meteorologists since at least 1980. The winter storm in March 1993 that was called the Storm of the Century was also a bomb cyclone. Social media has made bombogenesis and bomb cyclone part of our winter vocabulary.

But why "bomb?" That term comes because, like a bomb, the storm's pressure has to drop at least 24 millibars in less than 24 hours. That marks how quickly a storm strengthens.

The more familiar cyclones of tropical temperatures feed off patches of warm ocean water. But a winter bomb cyclone is from colliding air masses. You might hear it called a "winter hurricane" but meteorologists usually avoid that name.

And why "genesis?"  Bombogenesis refers more specifically to a bomb storm's development or "genesis." First the genesis, then the cyclone.

Over the Ether

In ancient and medieval times scholars and philosophers believed that there was a medium which filled out the space of the universe. This medium was called aether or ether, or also quintessence.

Ethers are definitely a class of organic compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups.  But "ether" is a word that can mean several things.

Ether can refer to the upper regions of space.

It was once used as the name of a common surgical anesthetic.

Ether, or luminiferous Ether, was the hypothetical substance through which electromagnetic waves travel. It was proposed by the greek philosopher Aristotle and used by several optical theories as a way to allow propagation of light, which was believed to be impossible in "empty" space.

The brilliant and erratic Nikola Tesla believed that electromagnetic waves propagate in aether and that gravitational and magnetic forces are all directly related to the aether.

It took many years and many experiments, but now we know that, based on scientific evidence, electromagnetic waves do not need a medium to travel through. The existence of ether was not found in the Michelson-Morley experiment performed in 1887, and the the then-prevalent aether theory fell away. Heading in another direction, research eventually led to special relativity, which rules out the existence of aether.

But despite that research in the early days of radio, "over the ether" was a phrase used to refer to radio airwaves, as when a signal comes over the ether.

Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation and, unlike sound waves which require material to vibrate and reflect energy to be heard, radio waves are received by being caught by an antenna. They can then be focussed and amplified using a tuner and amplifier system.

Flick Lives

“Flick Lives” is a reference to a character in many stories by radio humorist and writer Jean Shepherd. Flick was one of Shepherd's childhood friends  tales from his Indiana days. You might know him as the kid who gets his tongue frozen to a pole in the film A Christmas Story.

Fans and listeners to Shepherd's WOR-AM late night radio show in New York would often write “FLICK LIVES” as graffiti. Like the way that soldiers during WWII once wrote “Kilroy was here,”  it was not only a way of marking your turf, but also show that your were one od Shep's "night people."

Yes, people used to sometimes join the L and I in Flick to create a totally different message to the world.

Poor Flick gets his tongue frozen to an icy metal pole in A Christmas Story

Arctic

The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth, and it consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Alaska (United States), Northern Canada (Canada), Finland, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

But interestingly, its name comes from the sky above that predominantly treeless permafrost-containing tundra. The Great Bear Constellation, officially Ursa Major, comes from Latin where it means “greater she-bear.” Go back earlier to the Greek arktos which is the word for bear.

The name Arctic, meaning bearish, describes not only a land of the polar bear but also the parts of the Earth where the Great Bear constellation dominates the heavens even more than in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.

A very large constellation, Ursa Major is best known for its famous asterism (star grouping) the Big Dipper.

Hygge and Hugs

Hygge (pronounced hue-guh) is a Danish word used to mean something is cozy, comfortable, and charming. This coziness philosophy became the topic of a bunch of lifestyle books and blogs the past few years.

Hygge values the idea of cherishing yourself, candlelight, bakeries, a warming fireplace, dinner with friends, values experiences over possessions, and treasuring a sense of community.

The word hygge comes from a Norwegian word meaning "wellbeing, it is also said that it might originate from the word hug. Hug comes from the 1560s word hugge, which means "to embrace". The word hugge is of unknown origin but is highly associated with an Old Norse term, hygga, which means "to comfort", which in turn comes from the word hugr, meaning "mood." Go back further in etymology and we arrive at the Germanic word hugyan, which relates to the Old English hycgan, meaning "to think, consider."  I think that's a lot of hugging.

Hygge is not a new term. It first appeared in Danish writing in the 19th Century. While hygge has exactly the same meaning in Norwegian as in Danish and is a widely used word in Norway "hygge" as a cultural philosophy is mostly a recent Danish phenomenon. In Norway "hygge" is just a word, similar in status to "cozy" in English-speaking countries.

But the hygge lifestyle has moved beyond Denmark and it is taking hold in the United States.