US Midwest / East under derecho watch

[DocM]

Derecho watch from Iowa to Maryland, and of course the Great Lakes area is right in the line of fire.

A derecho has high velocity straight-line winds over a front of about 250 miles. The last really big one to hit the Detroit area (aka 'The Green Storm') was in 1980 and had peak winds of 150 mph. It leveled huge trees over a wide area of SE Michigan and KO'ed power here for 2 weeks (hurricanes start at 74 mph.) The 'Derecho of 2012' caused $1 billion in damages.

http://cbsnews.com/fullstory.rbml?catid=57588861&feed_id=1&videofeed=null

WASHINGTON A gigantic line of powerful thunderstorms could affect one-in-five Americans Wednesday as it rumbles from Iowa to Maryland packing hail, lightning and tree-toppling winds.

Meteorologist are warning that the continuous line of storms may even spawn an unusual weather event called a derecho, which is a massive storm of strong straight-line winds spanning at least 240 miles. Wednesday's storms are also likely to generate tornadoes and cause power outages that will be followed by oppressive heat, said Bill Bunting, operations chief at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

The risk of severe weather in Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, is roughly 45 times higher than on a normal June day, Bunting said. Detroit, Baltimore, Washington, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Louisville, Ky., have a risk level 15 times more than normal. All-told, the area the weather service considers to be under heightened risk of dangerous weather includes 64 million people in 10 states.

"It's a pretty high threat," Bunting said, who also warned that the storms will produce large hail and dangerous lightning. "We don't want to scare people, but we want them to be aware."

Wednesday "might be the worst severe weather outbreak for this part of the country for the year," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director at Weather Underground.

You can have tornadoes and a derecho at the same time, but at any given place Wednesday the straight-line winds are probably more likely.

Last year, a derecho caused at least $1 billion in damage from Chicago to Washington, killing 13 people and leaving more than 4 million people without power, according to the weather service. Winds reached nearly 100 mph in some places and, in addition to the 13 people who died from downed trees, another 34 people died from the heat wave that followed in areas without power.

Derechoes, with winds of at least 58 mph, occur about once a year in the Midwest. Rarer than tornadoes but with weaker winds, derechoes produce damage over a much wider area.

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Derecho of 2012

[Max Norris]

Oh joy. Think we had one of these in Ohio a couple years back, a majority of the state was without power for at least a week, rural areas went longer.. felt like a hurricane but with no rain, just non-stop crazy wind for a couple hours. Sucked.

[Original Poster]

get your kites out :D

[Growled Member]

Derechoes, with winds of at least 58 mph, occur about once a year in the Midwest.

The Midwest has really taken a pounding the last few years.

[spaceelf]

Decent winds are great! I love em.

But then people tell me I'm crazy.

[DocM]

There's nothing decent about the kind of derecho we get. When 100 foot cottonwood trees fly over your roof like an arrow before spearing your neighbors bay window, your 24 x 4 foot (full) above ground pool gets moved a foot off its foundation and your wife looks like a friggin' twitchy-panicky albino by the time you get home it's a bit much.

[Max Norris]

There's nothing decent about the kind of derecho we get.

No kidding -- a super strong wind gust is one thing, but it's this same speed of wind that just goes on and on without a break for a couple hours. Last one here saw an awful lot of property damage, and then just to make it even crappier there's the near state-wide loss of power for over a week, extra points for being absurdly hot and humid during that time too. I've seen some ugly storms when I used to live in Texas, but man these things are just nuts.

[spaceelf]

There's nothing decent about the kind of derecho we get. When 100 foot cottonwood trees fly over your roof like an arrow before spearing your neighbors bay window, your 24 x 4 foot (full) above ground pool gets moved a foot off its foundation and your wife looks like a friggin' twitchy-panicky albino by the time you get home it's a bit much.

I'm just saying we had a summer once where the wind *never stopped* at 40-50mph or more and I seem to be the only one in the state who loved it.

I know, not quite the severity of what you're talking about, but it was lovely.

[chrisj1968]

My wife just looked at our weatherchannel website. There is a huge line of storms reaching from illinois to my state of Maryland. last year, the building across the street had its' roof ripped off due to a tornado.

Be safe everyone and anyone in the storms path

[DocM]

Todays NOAA convection map. Convection maps RARELY show a RED ZONE - even during the recent Oklahoma tornadoes it didn't go RED. Be careful folks. This could get ugly.

Tomorrow