It's time to prepare for heavy snow this weekend as a rapidly intensifying winter storm arrives.

Such rapidly strengthening storms are capable of producing heavy rain, blizzard conditions and intense winds that can create dangerous conditions such as downed trees and power outages.

This weekend's potential winter storm over the Carolinas may bring a lot of snow or a little bit of snow. Could this storm become a bomb cyclone?

When turbulent weather with whipping winds and heavy snow is in the forecast, meteorologists sometimes warn that a storm could “bomb out” or become a bomb cyclone. But what exactly does this mean?