New Severe Weather Term

[Ryan Wichman]

Time to update your weather glossary for a new term, Super Derecho!

http://www2.ucar.edu/staffnotes/research/super-sized-storm

 

[MatthewCarman]

Time to update your weather glossary for a new term, Super Derecho!

http://www2.ucar.edu/staffnotes/research/super-sized-storm

I don't think that is a new term. I have been refering to extremely strong Derechoes as "Super Derechoes" for years now and I am probably not the only person.

 

[Jason Foster]

I'm still waiting for the word to come down that the weather term "bird fart storm" has been made official.

 

[Michael Nicolaou]

I'm still waiting for the word to come down that the weather term "bird fart storm" has been made official.

Is that related to Captain Phil Harris' notorious "crab farts" when fishing in the Bering Sea? May need to start looking at reports out of Alaska more closely.

I honestly am tired of everything being "super" sized in the common lexicon to describe something. Yes it was a dercho, yes it was extremely large and intense, but does it deserve the whole new classification of "super derecho"?

I'd be more interested in finding out if there was a significant meterological differrence from a normal derecho to cause the persistent wrap around and potentially reclassify with a more appropriate name.

 

[Karen St John]

I'm still waiting for the word to come down that the weather term "bird fart storm" has been made official.

Which will then be superseded by the "Super Bird Fart" storm..

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Just a FYI while we were talking about this particular storm. Earlier today I generated a couple of radar snapshots of that storm from Level 2 data. Pretty nice. Reflectivities:

Radial Velocities:

 

[rdale]

If you go back to the original paper, I don't see how this differs from a "regular" derecho.

Johns, R. H., and W. O. Hirt, 1987: Derechos: Widespread convectively induced windstorms. Wea. Forecasting, 2, 32–49.

 

[Michael Nicolaou]

If you go back to the original paper, I don't see how this differs from a "regular" derecho.

Johns, R. H., and W. O. Hirt, 1987: Derechos: Widespread convectively induced windstorms. Wea. Forecasting, 2, 32–49.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Zach Young]

I think the point of the study of this system in particular is focused around the development of the eye-like feature, if and how it contributed to the intensity of the system, and whether it is somehow different from more typical derechos. At least that's the impression I get from the staffnotes page. Of course, there's a lot of attention about how well this derecho matched with forecast models as well.

 

[David Reimer]

I don't think that is a new term. I have been refering to extremely strong Derechoes as "Super Derechoes" for years now and I am probably not the only person.

That article refers to it as an educated term.

 

[Terry Tyler]

I think the point of the study of this system in particular is focused around the development of the eye-like feature, if and how it contributed to the intensity of the system, and whether it is somehow different from more typical derechos.

I read somewhere that this system might have been warm-core like a tropical system. If I recall, there was signifigant wind damage occuring not just with the main line, but also coming off the eye. Does anyone know for sure if it was warm-core ?

 

[Bart_Comstock]

Wake lows are known to cause extensive wind damage. The "eye" was simply a very very strong wake low and gave the appearance of a hurricane's eye on radar. Just as they call it in the article it is an "eye-like" structure. A great look alike but not actually an eye and eye wall.

 

[Robert Dewey]

The eye-like feature may be indicative of a very intense derecho, but not all intense derechoes exhibit that feature. May 31, 1998 was quite intense considering the damage swath and number of >=100MPH reports (including a few >=130MPH reports). It never developed the "eye-like" feature.

Radar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrC23vJddSI
SPC write-up: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/casepages/may30-311998page.htm

Here's an event with an "eye-like" feature on May 2004, fast forward to 1:35: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDtbWnsWyvM&NR=1

 

[Chance Metz]

Wow I hope storms in my area never get that bad. We have a lot of trees and that menas we will be picking up branches for years! Now we jsut need a Super Douper Derecho.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

On a related Derecho note, I wish the term was educated more. Southern Illinois got hit by a progressive Derecho on May 08, 2009 and one person called it an inland hurricane and now that is what everyone says it was. I even argue with them saying that their are no oceans, they say I don't know what I am talking about LOL