Published on Nov. 23, 2024, 1:28 AM
Storm Bert will threaten the British Isles this weekend with high winds and widespread rain and snow
Canada has been no stranger to weather bombs this season. British Columbia is in the midst of its second bomb cyclone in one week—another intense storm hitting the same areas affected by hundreds of thousands of power outages just days earlier.
While B.C.’s second storm won’t grow as strong as the first, another storm out in the Atlantic Ocean could rival that first storm’s monstrous strength.
DON’T MISS: Two bomb cyclones in one week: How B.C.’s major storms compare
Storm Bert is brewing in the northern Atlantic Ocean, and it’s got its eyes set on the British Isles heading into this weekend.
The storm’s minimum central pressure is expected to drop a whopping 40-50+ mb in just 24 hours. This swift strengthening would more than double the criteria needed for bombogenesis, the process of rapid intensification that creates a bomb cyclone.
Europe’s weekend storm is comparable in size and intensity to the first bomb cyclone we saw in B.C. earlier this week.
RELATED: ‘Weather bombs’ are explosive storms that create ferocious conditions
The storm that formed off Canada’s West Coast saw its minimum pressure fall 60 mb in the course of 24 hours, but it remained more than 700 km offshore at its peak intensity.
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Bert, on the other hand, is expected to wash over Ireland and Great Britain through the weekend and into early next week.
The U.K. Met Office has issued widespread alerts for rain, snow, and wind across Great Britain on Saturday. An amber alert—the second-highest alert level in the agency’s warning system—is in effect for much of northern England and portions of southwest Scotland.
“Temporary accumulations of 5-10 cm are possible in the Vale of York, with 10-20 cm on ground typically above 200m, and potentially as much as 20-30 cm on hills above 400m,” the Met Office said on Friday.
In addition to the precipitation, very strong winds could lead to widespread power outages throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Intense waves are also expected, with heights of 8.5 metres just offshore with seas towering to more than 10 metres near the centre of the storm over the open ocean.
WATCH: What, exactly, is a bomb cyclone?
Header image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory.
