The United Kingdom is living up to its gloomy stereotype today as it feels the effects of a powerful cyclone sweeping across the northern Atlantic Ocean. The photogenic storm brought heavy snow to Ireland and Scotland, heavy rain to England and Wales, and winds of 75 MPH to the region's western coasts.

A major storm in the North Atlantic caused extreme winds and monster waves in the United Kingdom on Wednesday. Scotland's mountainous St. Kilda Island even recorded a 144 MPH wind gust during the height of the storm. People are breathlessly calling this a "weather bomb." What exactly is a weather bomb, anyway?

We're all about to freeze to death at the hands of an angry Alaskan sea bomb! Or, that's what it sounds like when you scroll through Twitter, anyway. What is this "bomb" everyone is talking about? Just how cold will it get and for how long? That question and more, answered below.

Since the media can't report on the weather without turning it into a hashtag or using a scare term to get people to click, many major weather events over the last few years were spun to sound a lot more disturbing than they really are. One of these includes the "bomb" that might happen near New England next week. It's not as rare or scary as you would think.