Jan. 19 (UPI) — Many residents of Newfoundland opened their doors to find a wall of snow trapping them within their own home, up to 3 feet in some places.
One family opened their garage door to find the snow piled up to more than half of the entrance. Another family opened the door for their dog, who began climbing and digging through the snow.
The storm system that had slammed the northeastern United States earlier in the week with strong winds, snowfall and lake-effect squalls exploded into a bomb cyclone on Friday after tracking into the Atlantic Ocean. The storm set its sights on portions of Atlantic Canada.
“A bomb cyclone is a rapidly deepening low pressure area which has central pressure fall of 24 mb [.7 inches of mercury] or more in a 24-hour period,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jack Boston said.
The storm’s barometric pressure crashed 1.21 inches of mercury within 24 hours.
Blizzard and high-wind warnings sprung up across portions of Atlantic Canada.
“A bomb cyclone is a rapidly deepening low pressure area which has central pressure fall of 24 mb (.7 inches of mercury) or more in a 24-hour period,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jack Boston said.
Snowfall at St. John’s International Airport established an all-time daily snowfall record of 30 inches, beating the old record of 26.9 inches set on April 5, 1999. Measurements began in 1942.
St. John’s East received about 32 inches. A little to the south, Mount Pearl received about 36.6 inches of total snowfall.
“A general 60 to 90 centimeters [2-3 feet] of snow is forecast to fall on the Avalon Peninsula and the southeastern half of the mainland of Newfoundland from the storm,” Anderson had said.
People across Newfoundland found their cars buried in the snow, some of the smaller compact vehicles submerged with only the roof showing. Any thought of shoveling a driveway was dashed at the sight of the road-or rather, the lack of any sight of it.
“Bomb cyclones are capable of producing heavy, wind-blown snow with wind speeds of 60-70 km/h and higher, very heavy snowfall and extreme snow drifts,” Boston said. “The storm can also bring wave heights over the coastal waters of 5 meters to 10 meters or higher.”
The highest recorded maximum wind gusts in St. John’s measured up to about 83 mph. Green Island, Fortune Bay, recorded a maximum wind gust of about 106 mph.
“Bomb cyclones are common for the eastern coast of Canada, including the Maritimes and Newfoundland, during the winter months,” Boston said.
