If anyone is interested, here is a good explanation of the destructive storms that roared across the country and left hundreds of thousands without power in the midst of an intense heatwave. Mike, is "derecho" ("straight" in Spanish) a term also used to describe the powerful dust storms out there? I know that "habu" is used, although I first encountered that word as the name of a very poisonous snake on Okinawa.
Thank you very much Noctilucy! I have never heard of the term Derecho applied to meteorology until this very recent event. While in Kansas, we used to call them,,"About to get our butt kicked". In Arizona I've experienced plenty of the off spring, " micro-bursts" when a cell of high convection collapses rapidly. Air conditioner units blown off of roofs and even telephone poles snapped in half and one time at work, an old WW2 airplane blown into the intersection ,yea, picked up and deposited about 100 yds away in the middle of an intersection. But not once have I ever heard the term Derecho applied. Observing satellite photos, one can see a linear stream of the warm moist atmosphere flowing up from the south. Derecho? Monsoon is what I've always called it. When this tropical flow streams into the Great Plains and rubs up against the cold coming down from Canada, yea, that linear interface is responsible for a lot of severe weather. Now we get to call that linear interface a Derecho...I don't think Sheriff Joe is gonna like that one bit, and I suppose it will give excuse for our Governor to point her finger at and wag her tongue to Pres. Obama the next time he visits. Yea, i can see both of 'em taking " Derecho" all the way to the Supreme Court. Oh thats right, they did, and they lost. But I digress.
Anyway, so a Derecho is like the Everyready Bunny but even better. It keeps going from Kansas to Virginia. A very interesting point made about all the trees planted during the housing booms are now reaching maturity and thus able to take down power lines when high winds hit. Peoples green ambitions look to be in need of trimming every now and then..
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Maybe we will have to amend that old Chinese proverb to: "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago...unless you have really good homeowners' insurance." One of my cousins in WV said that after the storm there were 30 trees blocking roads in just the county he lives in. Also, a microburst up in the Toledo area brought down a hundred trees a few days after the derecho, according to one report. Only one person killed, which seems almost a miracle.
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'H' I simply googled "dorecho" after seeing the word in an article. Here is another link that has a good picture of the shelf cloud as it formed over the Chicago area. There's video, too, but I haven't checked it out yet.
http://earthsky.org/earth/videos-and-images-violent-us-storm-of-june-29-2012
My cousin in West Virginia only got power restored this evening, and there are still hundreds of people without power. The heat wave is breaking, thank God, so hopefully there will be no more heat related deaths.
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