Tornadoes, hurricanes, and micro-bursts are all more or less familiar terms to us in the storm

Derecho in Nebraska

lexicon.  But would you believe that there is a terrifying behemoth of a storm – a storm that seems like the product of a child’s nightmare – that happened just recently?  Its called a derecho.

Derecho, taken from Spanish “straight”, refers to a highly powerful straight-line storm defined as follows:

…a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced straight-line windstorm

that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall line usually taking the form of a bow echo.

Derechos although rare, have phenonemal destructive power.  These storms can carry sustained straight line winds of 130 mph, travel at 70 mph, and span 250 miles in width and 800 miles in depth.  A true uber-storm!  For more information, check out this neat video on recent derechos in the South or Wikipedia’s full entry of the matter.