Overview
- Weather services and experts say impacts are expected from late Thursday into early Friday, with blowing snow, black ice and freezing temperatures likely to disrupt travel.
- An extreme-weather specialist anticipates up to 25 centimeters of new snow in northern Germany with drifts approaching 50 centimeters during several hours of strong winds on Friday morning, advising motorists to postpone trips.
- The developing low matches the scientific threshold for a so‑called “bomb” event, defined as a pressure drop of at least 24 hPa within 24 hours driven by sharp contrasts between cold and warm air masses over open water.
- German meteorologists caution that the widely used label “Bomben‑Zyklon” is imprecise because “Zyklon” denotes a tropical cyclone, and they prefer terms such as “Wetterbombe” or “rapide Zyklogenese.”
- Such rapidly deepening storms can produce severe winds, heavy precipitation and coastal surge, with the 1999 storm Lothar cited as a European example, though experts do not expect a comparable catastrophe this time given the brief duration.