Halloween "Meteorological Bomb"

Dangerous storms marched east on Halloween night and into Friday morning, creating numerous reports of flooding and wind damage, some of which was caused by reported tornadoes.

"An area of low pressure intensified rapidly as it moved from the Midwest into eastern Canada Thursday into early Friday," said weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce. "This resulted in numerous reports of high winds, wind damage and a few tornadoes from the lower and middle Mississippi Valleys into the Ohio Valley and central Appalachians."

According to The Weather Channel senior meteorologist Stu Ostro, the Halloween windstorm could be considered a "meteorological bomb", which occurs when the central pressure within a mid-latitude cyclone -- such as the one present during the Halloween severe weather -- falls on average at least one millibar per hour for 24 hours.

NOAA/NWS/WPA

Halloween Surface Weather Map

"Models had indicated this Halloween week system would be close to meeting the criteria -- the central pressure of the low pressure system dropping at least 24 millibars in 24 hours -- and may or may not quite get there," Ostro said.

"It did, dropping 27 millibars from 999 millibars Halloween morning to 972 millibars Friday morning.  It's a notable aspect of the storm, and was one of the things representative of how much energy it had."

Severe weather expert Dr. Greg Forbes states that at least 27 confirmed tornadoes in seven states from Texas to Ohio touched down on Thursday into the early morning hours of Friday. According to Dr. Forbes, this is a new record for the most confirmed tornadoes on any Halloween on record in the U.S. Most of these were rated EF0 and EF1, though an EF2 tornado touched down near Baker, Mo.