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I thought "blizzard" was the word appropriate for a snow and wind storm (whether those winds happen to reach "hurricane" force or not).
We call that a "white-out" or "snow squall"
because it's rarely ever cold enough to be considered a "blizzard," during that kind of storm.
(Canadian meteorologists/scientists robbed us of that term, imho. )
Here is a picture of the 2006 Blizzard that hit the Northeast and Canada:
Yeah, that looks like a hurricane!
It is snowing at least an inch or two an hour, yet there isn't any high winds ( thankfully ). The worst is still yet to come; that is what meteorologist is expecting.
What about sustained "hurricane-force winds" in a snowstorm?!?
This DOES happen!
I know a true hurricane has a huge "eye" with strong vertical up-drafts.
So that right there might disqualify it.
This came from the media where they were out of words to describe a big snow storm once Obmma named the previous one "sno-mageddon." Breaking News | Latest News | Current News - FOXNews.com has it as a "snow-icane" at the moment. If one of the English professors shows up they may fix it; they might also copyright it.
It is going to be windy:
"Another icy storm barreled into the winter-weary Northeast on Thursday as utility companies, airlines and others planned for what could team up with wet, heavy snowfall to be the most damaging part: high winds.
Even coastal New England, where rain was falling but nothing like the 18 inches of snow expected in some parts of northern New Jersey and upstate New York, was under coastal flood watches because of the wind."
That last sentence is a wonderful example of newspaper writing which apparently saves punctuation marks and sentence breaks.
Here is a picture of the 2006 Blizzard that hit the Northeast and Canada:
Yeah, that looks like a hurricane!
It is snowing at least an inch or two an hour, yet there isn't any high winds ( thankfully ). The worst is still yet to come; that is what meteorologist is expecting.
That sure looks like thermally drive rotation to me. Unless it is a vortex over Atlantis.
With hurricanes, the strongest winds is near the center. Exact opposite for this type of storm.
Right, at first glance the pictured storm looks like maybe a hypothetical satellite of the Labor Day hurricane in the 30's that crushed Long Island and New England, but upon further review (and if I had a telestrator I'd show it ) it does appear to have all the hallmarks of a mid latitude, comma shaped storm. Remember, surface lows of any sort do have cyclonic action around them, counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. It's entirely possible for a storm to swirl so much that the central area appears cloudless, resembling an eye. However, in a cold-core storm, the most powerful winds and moisture bands radiate outwards from the center of circulation, while in a warm-core (hurricane) the most powerful winds are concentrated in the intense eye-wall that surrounds the eye. There's a good false-color radar loop on wikipedia for the above mentioned storm, I would post the image directly but I think it's too big. Would prefer not to be banned, but Link to Wikipedia. As comparison, look at the radar image for practically any hurricane to strike the US. I did a little searching on close calls for New England, but Bill (09) was too far out to sea for good radar images and Gloria (85) was before the advent of the internet and I can't find any archived data. Anyway, look at the brighter colors right around the eye - strongest part of the storm.
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