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Derecho
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Diagram illustrating the evolution of a gust front during a thunderstorm, showing warm updrafts and cool downdrafts within a large cumulonimbus cloud, with arrows indicating airflow. The right side details four stages: formative, early mature, late mature, and dissipating, each with airflow patterns as the storm progresses.
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Diagram illustrating the evolution of a gust front during a thunderstorm, showing warm updrafts and cool downdrafts within a large cumulonimbus cloud, with arrows indicating airflow. The right side details four stages: formative, early mature, late mature, and dissipating, each with airflow patterns as the storm progresses.
thunderstorm: gust front The development of a gust front from a thunderstorm.

Derecho

climatology
Also known as: land hurricane
Written by
Roger A. Pielke
Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins. Author of Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling and others.
Roger A. PielkeAll
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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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•History

Derecho, windstorm traveling in a straight line characterized by gusts in excess of 93 km (58 miles) per hour and the production of a swath of wind-generated damage along a front spanning more than 400 km (250 miles) in length. Gustavus Hinrichs, a physics professor from the University of Iowa and founder of the Iowa Weather Service, applied the term derecho—a Spanish word that means “straight” or “right”—to straight-line winds in 1888. The phenomenon is...

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