In (Western) Canada, I’ve only heard the equivalent term “plow wind”.
My nephew lives in or near Waterloo, IA. He just got a thunderstorm, but said it gets bad about 20 miles south (ex: lots of down trees, corn blown over, damaged grain bins)
Brian
We got the tail end of it here in NE Indiana. Had a tree come down that missed my back porch by a few feet. My neighborhood looked like a bomb went off with all the tree damage. Somehow we didn’t lose power but other parts of town did.
I remember the derecho from 2012 that did huge damage here. I didn’t have power for four days and I was one of the lucky ones that got it back early.
Here is a brief National Weather Service report. " Maximum estimated winds were around 140 mph , which caused extensive damage to an apartment complex in southwest Cedar Rapids, IA."
https://www.weather.gov/dvn/summary_081020
Look particularly at the map of wind speeds:
I’m in the western Chicago burbs, and one of the tornadoes was half a block from my house. No power from Monday afternoon until Friday morning.
Aside from the insane amounts of damage from falling trees, it’s impossible to work from home during a pandemic in a power outage. I was considering working from a neighbor’s porch the day the power was fixed. All the support one would usually expect doesn’t show up when COVID-19 looms.
My employer’s stance was “LOL hope you have vacation days saved.”
I’m in the Chicago area, as well, and I’m a lifelong weather nerd. And, even I hadn’t heard the term until less than a decade ago.
We’ve had a few derecho events in Chicago in recent years, though not anything like the scale of this one.
My brother lives in the Chicago area, he got his power back in less than a day. He is also a weather nerd. In his case that means NOAA, volunteer weather observer and ham radio operator.
My sister in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is still waiting for her power to come back on. There isn’t a single tree still standing in her neighborhood.
In eastern Nebraska all I got was some minor tree limbs down, easily tidied up later that day.
We were lucky in that other than being w/o power for ~36 hours we didn’t experience any damage Technically we were only w/o power for 6 hours because, after driving around and seeing the damage, Mistermage decided it was a good idea to hook up the generator.
2 blocks away one of my sisters was w/o power for a week.
The Shop (Mistermage’s BFF’s farm where they work and play together) was hit hard. At least 8 trees down, roofing ripped off the house, the barn was pushed over, several metal shed torn apart (one piece was hanging from the power lines), RV camper was hit by a dune buggy and slammed off it’s tongue prop, a topper was ripped off a truck, a small tree impaled the dually, fruit was ripped off trees and the salsa garden is destroyed, and the weather vane was ripped off the roof of the Shop.
They spent all last week cleaning the place back up. Neither had to go to work because the places where they work had no power, either. It helped both of their bosses stopped by and saw the damage. Friends and family pitched in to clean debris out of the soybeans, run chainsaws, re-attached the powerline to the house (licensed electrician), did some temp roofing (waiting on insurance to actually fix it).
Trump stopped in Cedar Rapids but only at the airport. I’m glad they didn’t do a motorcade through the city but… why someone didn’t helicopter him around so he could see some of the damage, I don’t know. Maybe if they had he wouldn’t have seemed so clueless when he asked “So this was like a tornado? Was this as bad as the Flood?” (not his exact words)
He approved some Aid but not near what is needed. MSN
Of course in comment sections one reads “Boohoo, you voted for Trump, it is what it is.” Except some of us didn’t vote for him especially in the cities that have been devastated.
He could have looked out his plane window as it was landing to see all he needed to see.
My sister shared with me that only Republicans were invited to the airport for the meeting with him and a few CR government officials. He was there for only a few minutes. Basically a potty stop on the campaign trail. Grandstanding. As far as she can tell, Iowans weren’t fooled. They aren’t holding their breath waiting for sufficient aid to be forthcoming from the feds in time to actually help.
He wasn’t interested in helicoptering around the city to see the damage because he is purposefully clueless about other people’s needs. They don’t matter. And Iowa is a red state. Imagine if it was blue.
I’m in Elgin, IL (about 40 miles west of Chicago). The derecho came through, but no real damage in our town (aside from a few branches). However, towns to the south and a bit west lost power Monday and didn’t get it restored until at least Saturday. I’ve heard the term, and If I recall correctly, a derecho came through a few years ago.
A law office near my house did a collection for Cedar Rapids victims today. People sure were generous, and while I was there, a woman dropped off (among other things) THREE megapacks of diapers! That was very nice of her to do that.
I had some extra plastic totes and reusable shopping bags, and also gave them underwear I had intended for a collection later this year (but they need it now) and some swim diapers I purchased on clearance at a consignment shop just yesterday, again earmarked for my church’s food pantry but I decided to donate them here.
Tore hell outta your old hood, drop! Just drove past the Commons, where they have been chipping. There are HUGE piles of chips - at least 20’ tall.
Yeah, it touched down down there. Knocked down my giant fir tree, dumping it in the neighbor’s carport and back yard…
… Wife hated that tree and wanted to build an elven doll house on its stump. I don’t know if Wife had mentioned it to the landscaper when she lived (nice neighbor lady who spoke Spanish) but he twisted the one foot stump back into it’s hole.