CLEVELAND — "Polar vortex," "bomb cyclone," "pineapple express," and now "pneumonia front."
Did you happen to see headlines this week about a so-called "pneumonia front?" You might be thinking, 'Enough of the sensational weather terms - cold fronts move through the area all the time.' But believe it or not, it is a term that meteorologists have been using since the 1960s.
A pneumonia front is a rapid decrease in temperatures of at least 16 degrees or greater in only one hour. For the record, all of those other terms are real too.
Many Americans are not familiar with the jargon, though. It is a rare phenomenon that only affects a small portion of the Midwest and Lake Michigan during the spring and summer when the lake temperatures are still cold. This means only Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan have been affected by this type of front. The first documented pneumonia front was in June 1909.
After temperatures in Milwaukee topped out at 81 degrees Fahrenheit at 3 p.m. CDT Tuesday, the temperature crashed to 62 degrees by 3:28 p.m. CDT.
Within an hour, it was 57 degrees, and shortly before sunset, the temperature had dropped into the upper 40s.
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