[donna]

Derecho: De`re´cho n. 1. A straight wind without apparent cyclonic tendency, usually accompanied with rain and often destructive, common in the prairie regions of the United States.

[donna]

The current Derecho:

What is a Derecho? (With Timelapse Video)
June 29, 2012

Ring of Fire Derecho (Ref + Velocity Two Panel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3fQNLAMT4o

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Why have the meteorologists in about the last 50 years decided to give all weather phenomena foreign names?

I think it started by renaming tidal waves ‘tsunamis’. Last years effort was to call dust storms ‘simoons’, which was both silly sounding and elicited a big huh? from everyone who was used to calling a dust storm a dust storm.

And they’re never satisfied. It took a few decades for people to adjust to the idea of the word ‘monsoon’ in the southwest, which comes in the first week of July bringing higher humidity and little else other than dust storms.

But now they’ve decided to downgrade ‘monsoon’ from a definite event to sort of “midsummer”. They will probably give it a different name that sounds silly. “But that is what they call it in Yemen!”, is hardly a good rationale.

[donna]

Photo of the gust front "arcus" cloud on the leading edge of a derecho-producing storm system. The photo was taken on the evening of July 10, 2008 in Hampshire, Illinois as the derecho neared the Chicago metropolitan area. The derecho had formed around noon local time in southern Minnesota.

[BfloGuy]

Thanks for the post.

Until the other day, I'd never heard of a "Derecho." Very, very interesting.