Be more prepared to describe what’s happening outside your window.
Graupel
A soft snowflake coated in frost that looks more like sleet than snow. That frost is called rime ice and is the same stuff stuck to trees and grass after a bout of freezing fog. Catch one if you can!
Thundersnow
An unusual kind of thunderstorm with snow falling instead of rain. It typically falls in regions of strong upward motion within the cold sector of an extra-tropical cyclone.
Polar Vortex
An area of low pressure hangs out in polar regions, but sometimes this wide expanse of swirling cold air strays a little bit too far from its home up North. Part of it can break off and migrate southward, bringing all of that cold air with it.
Snowmageddon
Credited to blogger Greg Swan in April 2007 as a satirical response to local media’s coverage of a lackluster Minneapolis storm. First published in the popular press in Canada during January 2009. Interchangeable terms include Snowzilla, Snowpocalypse, or Superstorm.
Bombogenesis
This phenomenon occurs when a midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars over 24 hours. (A millibar measures atmospheric pressure.) For example, when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, then BLAMMO! You have the formation of a rapidly strengthening weather system.
