New (to me) weather phenomena: Derechos

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat observers of extreme weather (preferably from a safe distance . . . )

This is probably old news to many of you, but Weather Underground has been reporting storm events under a name I hadn't heard before: Derechos.  As usual, if you seek some unbiased information on something you don't know anything about, Wikipedia is a good place to start:

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derecho

Here are the first two sentences from that Wikipedia article:

A derecho (/dəˈreɪtʃoʊ/, from Spanish: derecho [deˈɾetʃo], "straight" as in direction) is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system.

Derechos can cause hurricanic or tornadic-force winds, actual tornadoes, heavy rains, and flash floods.

The Wikipedia article continues to point out:

With the average tornado in the United States and Canada rating in the low end of the F/EF1 classification at 40 to 45 m/s (75 to 85 kn) peak winds and most or all of the rest of the world even lower, derechos tend to deliver the vast majority of extreme wind conditions over much of the territory in which they occur.

So even if these winds were first characterized in 1888, they represent a phenomenon that should be more familiar to those living in Derecho prone areas than their more famous cousin: tornados.

Returning to Weather Underground (actually Weather Channel,) they have an article on derechos which includes a video:

https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/2020-04-28-derechos-severe-thunderstorms-widespread-damaging-winds-explained?cm_ven=hp-slot-2

So does anyone living in derecho territory have some wisdom to share about these things with those of us who live in a very different sort of weather environment?

Cheers, Edouard

[xairbusdriver]

I don't live in that "area", we usually only have tornados, but just search for "derecho + Iowa" and you'll find lots of hits. I watch several 'farming' YT channels, a couple in the NE/SD/MN states and saw lots of results of these storms a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact, I saw the same vid that NWS/NOAA uses just days after the event (Aug, 2020). Thankfully, I've never seen anything like a derecho!

I suspect these storms are 'aided' by the jet stream just as are tornados. My 'theory' is that when the updrafts of a large CB hits the jet stream, the the up-flow has nothing to stop it and it simply accelerates the updraft.

[xairbusdriver]

I don't live in that "area", we usually only have tornados, but just search for "derecho + Iowa" and you'll find lots of hits. I watch several 'farming' YT channels, a couple in the NE/SD/MN states and saw lots of results of these storms a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact, I saw the same vid that NWS/NOAA uses just days after the event (Aug, 2020). Thankfully, I've never seen anything like a derecho!

Here are some more details on the Aug. 10, 2020 storms.

I suspect these storms are 'aided' by the jet stream just as are tornados. My 'theory' is that when the updrafts of a large CB hits the jet stream, the the up-flow has nothing to stop it and it simply accelerates the updraft.