A year or so a go, I wrote about "storm porn" and chided major news outlets for trying to over-dramatize every weather event.
I admit it. I have a ghoulish curiosity about storms. So do lots of people. Storm chasers are a good example. So are all the people who watch the all-news channels during storms and boost those ratings. But I tire of reporters leaning into the wind and rain, wading in the water, and shouting the obvious extreme cliches.
The latest version of storm porn comes from the East Coast of Canada and is called "The Double Bomb" Monster Storm.
No live shots of journalists braving the "double bomb" are necessary, folks. Numbers and videos from people who live there will tell a good enough story for me.According to my analysis, the storm deepened from 1,008 millibars to 958 millibars in exactly 24 hours, between 9 a.m. Tuesday and 9 a.m. Wednesday, Eastern time, per the high-resolution NAM model. Even more impressively, the storm’s central pressure dropped by 24 millibars in just a six-hour period between midnight and 6 a.m. Wednesday—a deepening rate four times that necessary for a “bomb.”
Such an intensification rate has rarely occurred outside of tropical cyclones and is almost unprecedented for a winter storm.
The result is meteorological eye-candy for those not in the direct path. ...
In Canada, the storm will display its full fury: Meteorologists in Nova Scotia are already comparing it to “White Juan”—an infamous blizzard that buried the Halifax area under nearly three feet of snow in February 2004.
Later on Wednesday, as the storm makes its closest approach to Canada, forecastersare anticipating winds near hurricane force with gusts much higher just offshore. Snow totals could top two feet, and much of the region is essentially shut down.