The storm that crashed into the central California coast on Tuesday afternoon underwent bombogenesis, a meteorological process more commonly known on social media as a bomb cyclone.
For a storm to be dubbed a bomb cyclone, the atmospheric pressure must drop at least 0.71 of an inch of mercury (24 millibars) in 24 hours. Tuesday’s storm blew this benchmark out of the water with a buoy in Monterey Bay, just south of Santa Cruz, recoding a pressure drop of 0.71 of an inch of mercury (24 millibars) in just 17 hours.
According to Accuweather, The storm’s ferocity also generated a storm surge of two feet along the coast of central California. The storm was so intense that it appeared to develop an eye on satellite, similar to what is seen in tropical storms and hurricanes, although this week’s storm was much different than a tropical system.
