In A Year Of Extreme Storms, Here Are Weather Words To Know From A-Z

ACROSS AMERICA — Intense weather over the past decade has given Americans a flurry of meteorological terms to describe events they’ve never experienced before, some with names almost too frightening to think about, as the planet warms.

This summer of round after round of severe storms has been no exception.

The past week alone has seen a deadly string of derechos, tornadoes and floods stretching from the Plains to New England. Millions of Americans continue to broil under summer heat that started early and intensely, with at least 73 heat-related deaths and another 300 suspected deaths due to the heat, NBC News reported Thursday. California wildfires are burning more land this year than in 2023, and the hurricane season started early with Hurricane Beryl which barreled across parts of the Caribbean and Mexico as a Category 5 hurricane before making landfall in Texas as a weaker but still destructive Category 1 storm.

This year has so far been the hottest summer on record for millions of Americans from California to Maine as heat records fall around the country, especially in the U.S. Southwest as the world grows hotter with more greenhouse gasses added to the atmosphere. Nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998.

Climate scientists warn that record-breaking heat on the land and in the ocean, torrential rains and severe flooding, years-long droughts, extreme wildfires and hurricanes will become more frequent with climate change.

Before we dip into the glossary of weather terms, here are three from the National Weather Service everyone should know.

Warning: A warning is issued while hazardous weather is occurring, imminent or likely, and means weather conditions pose a threat to life or property.

Advisory: An advisory is also issued while hazardous weather is occurring, imminent or likely, but for conditions that are less serious than those prompting a warning; these events can still cause significant inconvenience if caution isn’t exercised, and could lead to situations that may threaten life or property.

Watch: A watch is issued when the risk of severe weather is heightened, but the exact timing and location of the event hasn’t been determined; watches are intended to give people time to prepare for hazardous weather.

Now, from A to Z, here are weather words and phrases to know:

Atmospheric river: Known as “rivers in the sky,” atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow and always moving columns of vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water of the Mississippi River, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. When they reach landfall, they unleash a torrent of rainfall or snow.

Blizzard: A blizzard is a storm containing large amounts of snow or blowing snow, with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than one-fourth mile for at least three hours.

Bomb cyclone or, alternately, bombogenesis: Bandied about by meteorologists, the interchangeable terms describe a mid-latitude cyclone that rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars (the standard used by the National Weather Service to measure atmospheric pressure) in 24 hours. This often happens when warm and cold air masses collide. This can create what’s called a “bomb cyclone” or bombogenesis.

Cyclone: Cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons are essentially the same thing; What they’re called depends on where they occur. Hurricanes are the tropical storms that form over the North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific oceans; cyclones form over the South Pacific and Indian Ocean. Typhoons form over the Northwest Pacific Ocean.

Derecho: The term derecho was coined in 1888 to distinguish between these widespread, long-lasting and destructive straight-line winds and tornadoes. Similar in strength to tornadoes, derechos travel in one direction along a relatively straight path. Derechos, by definition, are winds that cause damage across more than 240 miles and include sustained wind gusts of at least 58 mph.

El Niño & La Niña: They are the warm and cool phases, respectively, of a recurring climate pattern over the tropical Pacific Ocean that together are known as El Niño-Southern Oscillation that swings back and forth every three to seven years; among the effects in the United States, El Niño can cause more rain than usual, while La Niña can lead to drier-than-usual conditions across the Southwest. The winter of 2022-23 is what’s called a “triple dip La Niña” — in other words, it’s the third consecutive winter that a La Niña will shape weather patterns across the country.

Firenado: The National Weather Service issued the first-ever fire tornado warning during the 2020 wildfire season, though the term had been used at least since 2018 to describe the fire whirl that occurs when very intense heat rises from the fire, is enveloped by the surrounding air and creates a spinning column of air; it’s also called a fire devil or fire tornado.

Gustnado: This is a small, weak and short-lived tornado that occurs along the gust front of a thunderstorm; a gustnado may look like a debris cloud or dust whirl near the ground.

Haboob: These intense sand and dust storms, with wind speeds over 40 mph, occur globally, despite an Arabic name that means “blasting”; in North America, it is sometimes used interchangeably with “dust storm.”

Heat domes and heat waves: When a high-pressure system develops in the upper atmosphere, it causes the air below it to sink and compress, which raises the temperature in the lower atmosphere. The hot air expands, creating a bulging dome. A heat wave relates to how intense the heat is, how long it lasts and the geographic location.

Iridescent clouds: The brilliant patches of green or pink that are sometimes seen near the edges of high- or medium-level clouds are associated with thunderstorms and occur the same way rainbows do — in fact, they’re sometimes called fire rainbows or rainbow clouds.

Jet stream: These are narrow bands of strong winds in the upper atmosphere, generally blowing from west to east, that steer fronts and low-pressure systems.

Knuckles: A slang term used by storm spotters to describe a thunderstorm anvil’s lumpy protrusions. Found on the edges and sometimes on the underside of the black-sheared anvil, they indicate a very strong updraft and rapid expansion of the storm.

Lenticular clouds: Stationary clouds that form mainly in the troposphere, the lowest region of the atmosphere, they can look like UFOs or flying saucers and are formed when stable, moist air flowing over a mountain or mountain range (though they also form in non-mountainous places) and swoops downward. Sometimes called “standing wave clouds,” they are a signal of atmospheric instability.

---

Microburst: Also called a macroburst, this is a small, concentrated downburst — that is, strong winds on or near the ground that cause damage similar to a strong tornado and typically associated with thunderstorms — that typically affects an area no larger than 2.5 miles wide and typically lasts only 5 minutes, though some have lasted five times that long.

Nor’easter: These powerful storms, called nor’easters because they form along the East Coast of North America may occur at any time of year but most frequently between September and April. They usually develop in the latitudes between Georgia and New Jersey, and typically reach maximum intensity near New England, almost always bringing heavy rain, snow, gale force winds, rough seas and, occasionally, flooding.

Obscuration: Whether mist, fog, smoke, volcanic ash, dust, sand or haze, an obscuration is any phenomenon in the atmosphere, other than rain or snow, that reduces visibility.

Polar vortex: The term usually refers to the gigantic circular upper air weather pattern in the Arctic region, enveloping the North Pole (but it can apply to the South Pole, too). It is a normal pattern that is stronger in the winter and keeps some of the coldest weather bottled up near the North Pole. The jet stream usually pens the polar vortex in and keeps it north. But at times some of the vortex can break off or move south, bringing unusually cold weather south and permitting warmer weather to creep up north.

Quantitative precipitation forecast: Often shortened as QPF, it is meteorologists’ best estimate of the chance that a given area will receive an amount or rain that exceeds a certain threshold value, according to the National Weather Service.

Rainbow: Among nature’s most glorious displays, rainbows occur when sunlight and rain droplets intersect; sunlight enters many droplets of water at once, reflecting from the inside of the droplet and separating component wavelengths, or colors, and creates rainbows as it exits.

Snow squall: Often associated with strong cold fronts, snow squalls are a key winter weather hazard. They move in and out quickly, typically lasting less than an hour, but can cause sudden white-out conditions combined with falling temperatures that produce icy roads in just a few minutes.

Storm surge: An abnormal rise of water above the normal tide generated by a storm.

Tornado: These narrow, violently rotating columns of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground are among the most violent of all atmospheric storms.They often occur in the spring and summer months — though increasingly at other times and in places of the country not accustomed to tornadoes,

Tsunami: A series of waves caused mainly by large earthquakes below or near the ocean floor, tsunamis are among the most powerful and destructive forces of nature. They are rare, and most are small and nondestructive. Not all earthquakes trigger tsunamis, and not all tsunamis are caused by earthquakes. Landslides, volcanic activity, certain types of weather and near earth objects (e.g., asteroids, comets). Not all earthquakes cause tsunamis.

Upper air: What happens up there dictates what happens down here; Earth’s atmosphere above 5,000 feet is the source of the weather we experience at the ground level, whether rain and drought, wind and calm, heat and cold; meteorologists look at what’s happening in the upper air before forecasting what will happen on the ground.

Virga: Streaks or wisps or rain that fall from a cloud but evaporate before they reach the ground; shafts of virga may precede a microburst.

Waterspout: There are both tornadic and fair weather waterspouts; the former is a tornado that forms over water or moves from land to water associated with severe thunderstorms and having the same characteristics as a land tornado, while fair weather waterspouts usually form along the dark, flat base of a line of developing cumulus clouds that move very little and are not associated with thunderstorms.

Wind chill factors and heat indices: Windchill factors describe the effect of the wind and cold temperatures on exposed skin. A heat index describes how the weather feels to the human body when relative humidity and air temperature are combined.

X-rays: A type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between gamma rays and ultraviolet radiation; they’re nothing to be too concerned about: essentially all X-rays from space are absorbed in Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Young ice: One of the stages of sea ice development. When ice forms on the sea, it starts out as “new ice,” evolving into “nilas” as it thickens and hardens and finally into “young ice”; all three stages of ice development are collectively known as “first year ice,” and if it survives a second year, it’s known as “old ice” or “multiyear ice.”

Zigzag lightning: A flow of electrons about a thousand times stronger than the electric current in our houses, lightning takes the most direct path to the ground; sometimes it’s in a straight line, but fluctuations in temperature, humidity and dust particles in the air can result in a zigzag pattern in lightning.

Editor’s note: Parts of this story were originally published on Across America Patch on April 8, 2021. Sources include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, Patch reporting, The Associated Press and other news sources.