National Weather Service satellite images show a dramatic, churning cyclone approaching California's coast as parts of Northern California get battered by the atmospheric river. The ferocious storm could be called a winter hurricane,

A powerful bomb cyclone is ripping the Pacific Northwest with hurricane-strength winds as the season’s first atmospheric river comes ashore in Northern California, promising torrential rains, floods and mudslides across the region.

A powerful winter storm brewing near the Pacific Northwest known as a bomb cyclone is dragging an atmospheric river.

A powerful bomb cyclone is taking aim at the Pacific Northwest and northern California with hurricane force winds forecast to gust up to 70 mph with as much as 15 inches of rain and heavy snow in the mountains.

A “bomb cyclone” over the Pacific Ocean is expected to bring days of damaging winds, rainfall and blizzards to Northern California, Oregon and Washington.

Bomb cyclone is a term used by weather enthusiasts to describe a process that meteorologists usually call bombogenesis. It’s the rapid intensification of a cyclone in a short period of time, and it can happen during powerful storms such as the one northern California and the Pacific Northwest are preparing for this week.

A bomb cyclone that hit the US Pacific north-west and killed multiple people is expected to combine with an atmospheric river, bringing life-threatening rainfall and flooding to the western region. The winter storm has already brought damaging winds and dangerous levels of rain and snow to the US west coast.