They used to call these “Gust Fronts” but they just didn’t carry the same emotional impact as “Drecho”.
I don’t think it’s Drecho, but if I ever created a cartoon overlord/demon, I would totally name him Drecho.
The Derecho that struck wv last year was insanely powerful. They called it straight line winds, but I still have the photos from our hiking trails of trees twisted apart. I was walking in the front door of work when everyone started yelling tornado. It shredded the McDonalds into several pieces that were found a block away.
I guess it felt worse than the tornadoes of my past because there was zero warning.
If you live in the place with a few trees and mountains, you are probably better off.. The worst part was it occurred in the hottest weeks of the year and many were without power for ten to fourteen days. These morons had no water at home, no food, no emergency prep.
It was an awesome, fearsome wind swath.
Drecho is not a gust front. Gust fronts can form in front of a drecho.
That said, drecho has been is meteorology lingo long before TV was invented...this type of event is not common. The drecho was named by some fellow with a European name, in Iowa, bach in the late 1800’s.
I’d wiki it fer ya, but it’s too damned early, and I gots ta leave for work.
Cheers!
Derecho is a Spanish word. It’s yet another effort to make our language comply with political correctness. A few years ago there was an effort to rename wind storms as a “haboob”... A boob-headed idea that failed.