News > ‘Coldest Christmas ever, bomb cyclone’: US prepares for freezing holiday week

‘Coldest Christmas ever, bomb cyclone’: US prepares for freezing holiday week

A dangerously frigid arctic air mass gripped a vast swath of the United States ahead of what could be one of the coldest Christmases on record, as a looming winter storm threatened to disrupt the travel plans of millions of Americans. As the storm took shape over the Great Lakes, a weather phenomenon known as a bomb cyclone was expected to develop from a “rapidly deepening low-pressure system,” according to the National Weather Service (NWS).