"Megalopolis?"
 

I was checking today's flight operations to see if my CO 15 would be delayed, and I saw this little paragraph:

(Emphasis mine).

What is the "Megalopolis?" Is it the NYC area? Since when do we call it that? Why wasn't I informed?

Is that how CO refers to the region now?

CO's weather forecasts actually appear to use that word (fairly regularly) to refer to the entire BOS-WAS corridor.

And that's a geographically correct term to describe the populated areas of Boston-Washington.

Right, I'd just never heard it before.

I thought the NYC area was called Gotham :p

It seems to be a term used in places other than the D.C to Boston area where it is an unknown term. I first heard it last year on the weather channel.

It's not unknown, it's just uncommon, and BosWash (another uncommon term) is one megalopolis, not the megalopolis-- greater LA would meet the definition as well. The geography education in this country is singularly dismal.

I learned it in 6th grade geography, but I went to private school :D And those kids on the spelling bee still kicked my butt!

So is the reasoning that once WX hits a good portion of the megalopolis (or a single very significant city, al la NYC or DC), it will cascade travel delays throughout?
Or is there warnings issued as NYC/DC-metro/etc when it affects just those areas, and megalopolis is only used with issues that affect a larger portion of the region than just a single major city?

The airspace is so congested in that area that WX at one airport can clog things up for all of them- BOS, JFK/LGA/EWR, PHL, IAD/DCA/BWI.

I first heard the term 30 years ago in grade school to refer to the BOS-WAS corridor.

I live in the "Megalopolis" and have never heard the term before to describe the Boston-Washington corridor. I didn't know that those in Flyover Country had given us that name :p

See, it's exactly because you live inside it! If you are a casual person living in Boston, why would you care about what's the weather is like in DC, unless you're traveling? At the most, weather people will only talk about traffic on the Masspike or I-95 doing down to NYC.

But for those from outside the area, they may look at it and see a bunch of very large cities all tied together for 400 miles. That's a megalopolis.

Similarly, Southern California is a megalopolis. But I think most San Diegans don't care too much what's going on in the San Bernadino Valley, even though they live in the same megalopolis.

:)

True - but here in LA, the news readers and short skirted "meteorologists" call it "The Southland."

The Chicago metro area is sometimes referred to as "Chicagoland" on local news.

I had to ask a few other fellow travellers here along the Northeast Corridor and none of them have heard of Megalopolis.