[Ads-l] mainstream meteorological terms for Anthropocene weather

[Barretts Mail]

In "Climate change and the new language of weather” (2 Dec 2019, https://www.greenbiz.com/article/climate-change-and-new-language-weather <https://www.greenbiz.com/article/climate-change-and-new-language-weather>), Joel Makower provides six words that he says are common in weather reports. He says that most are from meteorology ("Most of these terms aren’t exactly new, but most are just entering popular usage as they are deployed to describe weather phenomena once considered rare or exotic”).

Merriam-Webster has one of them; the OED has none. Wiktionary has all but “flash drought”.

Words:
atmospheric river
bomb cyclone
bombogenesis
derecho: the MW has this (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/derecho <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/derecho>)
flash drought 
polar vortex
thundersnow (the OED has a draft of “thunder snowstorm”)

Wiktionary links:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atmospheric_river <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atmospheric_river>
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bomb_cyclone <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bomb_cyclone>
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bombogenesis <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bombogenesis>
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/derecho <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/derecho>
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polar_vortex <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polar_vortex>
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thundersnow <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thundersnow>

Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
Formerly of Seattle, WA
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org