Winter Storm

Ten years ago, on January 18 and 19, 2007, Winter Storm Kyrill tore across a wide swath of Europe bringing destructive winds and rain.

It is snowing in Boston this morning—not much, but enough to remind me that winter is here. When a snowstorm is in the offing, the first question people usually ask is: "How deep is it going to be?"

People like to name things, whether animals, cars, or storms, so they can more easily identify and remember them. Meteorological organizations have been naming tropical storm systems since the 1950s, which has proved popular with the general public, media, weather forecasters, and catastrophe modelers. The practice of naming storms, however, is not as simple as it may at first appear.

Just as the Atlantic hurricane season has ended, the European windstorm season is already underway.

In Europe, windstorms can be like London busses: you wait forever and then several come along together. This clustering is a natural feature of extratropical cyclones over Europe.

In the weather community, few topics generate more buzz than weather modification. It has been the source of grand engineering ideas, among them tornado walls, armadas of mirror-laden ships, and hurricane-busting superbombs. And popular culture has glamorized the idea with futuristic devices that provide rain or shine at the touch of a button.

The winter of 2015 (or more accurately, February 2015) has been historic for New England, setting many snowfall records and causing massive headaches for commuters in the Boston area. In addition to the heavy snowfall, February has featured extremely cold temperatures.

The winter weather of 2015 has brought many challenges to residents of the northeastern United States, including extended periods of arctic air and repeated bouts of snow that have resulted in widespread reports of property damage.

OK, so an epic snowstorm just dropped five feet or more of snow on parts of western New York state, and the 24-hour United States snowfall record set in 1921 may get beaten—and it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. What's going on?

What a winter! While we were suffering through a prolonged deep freeze here in the northeastern U.S., one powerful storm after another pounded northern Europe. In total, 43 storms with hurricane force winds formed in the North Atlantic between October 2013 and March 8, 2014, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).