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The heat wave of 1995 derecho series are a series of derechos that occurred from July 11 through July 15, 1995, primarily impacting areas from Montana to the US Midwest, and the Great Lakes Region.
A tremendously hot and humid air mass over the Great Plains contributed to the development of four powerful derechos. These particular derechos occurred during the Heat Wave of 1995. The derechos developed along the northern rim of the air mass on a stationary front.
This derecho raced through eight states in 24 hours: Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia as well as one Canadian province, Ontario. This was termed a 'right turn' derecho because its initial eastward progression moved sharply to a south-southeast direction, having developed from a band of thunderstorms in Montana. Hector International Airport in Fargo, North Dakota recorded a 91 mph wind gust. This was the second day of three that Minnesota suffered hits from derecho winds—five million trees were blown down and buildings were damaged or destroyed, and six campers were injured by falling trees in the early morning hours.
The derecho moved south and southeast during the afternoon hours and blew more trees down. Three people were killed and several injuries occurred in eastern Michigan. In Roscommon County, 100,000 trees and 100 miles of power lines were blown down. In Detroit, Michigan, 400,000 people lost power. It was the biggest power loss for the city since the July 7, 1991 derecho event. The power loss only added to what might have been a very uncomfortable situation. As previously mentioned, Detroit was in a massive heat wave. Luckily, the heat was mitigated by cooling from rain.
The derecho wreaked havoc in southwestern Ontario, hundreds of trees fell and damage was caused to buildings. When the derecho crossed Lake Erie, the storm capsized many boats and one man was killed.
The derecho moved into Ohio and felled thousands of more trees. Three more people were killed and several more were injured. The derecho finally dissipated near the Ohio River at midnight on July 14.
Amazingly, this was not the only major heat wave of July 1995. At the end of the month and the beginning of August, another major heat wave spread across the country. An example of this was the 128 degrees Fahrenheit registered on July 28 in Indio, California.
The Ontario-Adirondacks Derecho got its start near the straits of Mackinac on Friday evening July 14, 1995. At the Mackinac Bridge connecting the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan, 100 mph winds were detected and sustained winds above 80 mph continued on the bridge for 10 additional minutes. After crossing the open waters of Lake Huron/Georgian Bay, the storm raced southeastward into central southern Ontario. Several brief tornadoes were reported. An F1 tornado struck the Balsam Lake Trailer Park near Kirkfield, flipping over vehicles, destroying several trailers and sending ten people to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. One trailer was thrown over 250 meters. Across the lake from the trailer park, straightline winds caused extensive damage in the cottage community of Long Point. Further east, near Peterborough, an F2 tornado hit Bridgenorth damaging or destroying 20 homes and a marina with winds estimated upward of 200 km/h (120 mp/h). To get an idea of the straight line wind damage over a wide area, a sustained wind gust of 136 km/h (84 mp/h) was recorded just north of Toronto at the Buttonville Airport, which was located on the far southern periphery of the main derecho.
Many thousands of trees were blown down across the province severing power lines, blocking roadways, and damaging homes. One person was killed, and dozens of people were injured. Eight people trapped in flipped houseboat in Pigeon Lake near Peterborough were rescued hours after the storm. Power was not restored to some affected areas for up to a week after the event. The derecho caused CAN$53 million in damage.
The storm entered New York state at around 4 A.M. The storm slammed into the Adirondacks felling 900,000 acres (3,600 km2) of forest. The value of the loss of timber was estimated at over $200 million (1995 dollars) ($306M in 2014 dollars)
The derecho passed through the Syracuse airport with a 76 mph wind gust. A parked Boeing 727 was blown into another plane. A 77 mph wind gust was recorded at Albany. It moved into New England a little after sunrise producing 70-90 mph wind gusts in several towns in Massachusetts. Fifty people were left homeless after the derecho blew the roof off an apartment building in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Three people were injured in Deerfield, Massachusetts when a hot air balloon got caught into the winds of the derecho gust front and blew into a tree.
During the July 15, 1995 derecho, over 600 lightning strikes were observed in a 10-minute period during the storms peak intensity. 600 lightning strikes in 10 minutes translates into 60 strikes a minute or one strike every second. [1] A Lightning Detection System (LDS) displayed flash rates of 3000 strokes per hour. Satellite photography depicted expanding cloud tops to 75,000 feet.
The Ontario-Adirondacks Derecho was the strongest of the derecho events of the previous days and is among the costliest thunderstorms in US/Canadian history. It caused $500 millions in damage. Altogether, the four derecho events caused nearly $1 billion in damage.
Hurricane Opal was a large and powerful Category 4 hurricane that caused severe and extensive damage along the northern Gulf Coast of the United States in October 1995. The fifteenth named storm, ninth hurricane and strongest tropical cyclone of the unusually active 1995 Atlantic hurricane season, Opal developed from the interaction of a tropical wave and a low-pressure area near the Yucatán Peninsula on September 27 as Tropical Depression Seventeen. The depression crossed the Yucatán Peninsula and intensified into a tropical storm on September 30. Opal intensified into a hurricane on October 2 after entering the Gulf of Mexico. The cyclone turned northeastward and strengthened significantly. By October 4, Opal was an intense 150 mph (240 km/h), Category 4 hurricane. With a minimum pressure of 916 mbar (hPa), Hurricane Opal was the most intense category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record. However, the cyclone abruptly weakened to a low-end Category 3 hurricane prior to making landfall on the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola later that day. The storm quickly unraveled as it moved inland and became extratropical on October 5. The remnants of Opal moved northward and dissipated over Ontario the following day.
A derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system.
The Independence Day Derecho of 1977 was a derecho, or long-lived windstorm associated with a fast-moving band of thunderstorms, that swept across the Great Lakes region of the U.S. on July 4, 1977. It lasted around 15½ hours. The derecho formed in Minnesota around 10 a.m. CDT on July 4 and became more intense around noon in the central part of the state. The derecho produced winds of 80–100 mph (130–160 km/h) in northern Wisconsin, felling thousands of trees.
The Boundary Waters–Canadian Derecho was an international derecho that occurred during the afternoon and evening hours of July 4 and the early morning hours of July 5, 1999. It traveled 1,300 miles (2,092 km) and lasted 22 hours.
The I-94 derecho was a progressive derecho that moved through the Upper Mississippi Valley on July 19, 1983. It is so called because the derecho moved through Minnesota and Wisconsin with I-94 as its axis.
The Southern Great Lakes Derecho of 1991 is the derecho event that occurred on July 7 and 8, 1991. It lasted 17 hours and raced from South Dakota through southern Michigan before dying out over Western Pennsylvania.
The New York State Labor Day Derechos were two derecho events that occurred on Labor Day, September 7, 1998. One derecho moved through northern and central New York state, and the other would start in southeastern Michigan and move through northeastern Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Long Island. A spokesman for the New York State Emergency Management Office, estimated that 300,000 residences had lost electricity, 7 persons died and 80 were injured.
The Late-May 1998 tornado outbreak and derecho was a historic tornado outbreak and derecho that began on the afternoon of May 30 and extended throughout May 31, 1998, across a large portion of the northern half of the United States and southern Ontario from southeastern Montana east and southeastward to the Atlantic Ocean. The initial tornado outbreak, including the devastating Spencer tornado, hit southeast South Dakota on the evening of May 30. The Spencer tornado was the most destructive and the second-deadliest tornado in South Dakota history. A total of 13 people were killed; 7 by tornadoes and 6 by the derecho. Over two million people lost electrical power, some for up to 10 days.
The 1938 Atlantic hurricane season produced fifteen tropical cyclones, of which nine strengthened into tropical storms. Four storms intensified into hurricanes. Two of those four became major hurricanes, the equivalent of a Category 3 or greater storm on the modern day Saffir–Simpson scale. The hurricane season officially began on June 16 and ended on November 15. In 2012, as part of the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project, meteorologists identified a previously undocumented January hurricane and September tropical storm while fine-tuning the meteorological histories of several others. However, given scant observations from ships and weather stations, significant uncertainty of tropical cyclone tracks, intensity, and duration remains, particularly for those storms that stayed at sea.
The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that devastated the Great Lakes Basin in the Midwestern United States and Southwestern Ontario, Canada, from November 7 to 10, 1913. The storm was most powerful on November 9, battering and overturning ships on four of the five Great Lakes, particularly Lake Huron.
Hurricane Chantal was one of three tropical cyclones to make landfall in Texas during the 1989 Atlantic hurricane season. The third named storm and the first hurricane of the season, Chantal slowly developed on July 30 in the southern Gulf of Mexico from a tropical disturbance that was previously within Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) while near Trinidad and Tobago. While heading north-northwestward, the depression steadily intensified and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Chantal on the following day. Thereafter, Chantal quickly strengthen and became a hurricane on August 1. After intensifying slightly further, Chantal made landfall near High Island, Texas later that day. The storm quickly weakened upon moving inland and fell to tropical storm intensity a few hours after landfall. Early on August 2, Chantal weakened to a tropical depression and dissipated over Oklahoma by August 4.
The heat wave of 2006 derecho series were a set of derechos — severe winds with powerful thunderstorms — that occurred on July 17–21, 2006. The first storms hit a wide swath of north-central and northeastern North America that stretched from the Upper Midwest through much of Ontario and into the northeastern United States. Another round struck the middle Mississippi River Valley, including two derechos that hit St. Louis, Missouri. The storms left more than three million people without power, some more than once and some for weeks.
The Corn Belt derecho was a progressive derecho which affected a large area of the central United States on June 29, 1998. In the morning, thunderstorms, including a supercell, developed over South Dakota and tracked into central Iowa. As the thunderstorms reached central Iowa, a strong rear-inflow jet developed which caused the thunderstorm to take on a different characteristic, becoming a derecho. It traveled more than 600 miles in about ten hours, causing more than $125 million worth of widespread damage destruction, especially to crops, and was responsible for power outages to nearly a half a million people.
The June 2010 Northern Plains tornado outbreak was one of the most prolific summer tornado outbreaks in the Northern Great Plains of the United States on record. The outbreak began on June 16, with several tornadoes in South Dakota and Montana. The most intense storms took place the following day across much of eastern North Dakota and much of Minnesota. The system produced 93 tornadoes reported across four states while killing three people in Minnesota. Four of the tornadoes were rated as EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, the most violent tornadoes in a 24-hour period since there were five within 15 hours in the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak. This was the region's first major tornado outbreak of the year and one of the largest on record in the region, comparable to a similar outbreak in June 1992. The 48 tornadoes that touched down in Minnesota on June 17 marked the most active single day in the state's history. June 17 was the second largest tornado day on record in the meteorological summer, behind the most prolific day of the 2003 South Dakota tornado outbreak on June 24, 2003.
The October 2010 North American storm complex is the name given to a historic extratropical cyclone that impacted North America. The massive storm complex caused a wide range of weather events including a major serial derecho stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes, a widespread tornado outbreak across the Southeast United States and Midwest and a blizzard across portions of the Canadian Prairies and the Dakotas. The cyclone's lowest minimum pressure of 955.2 mb (28.21 inHg) made it the second most intense non-tropical system recorded in the continental United States (CONUS). The lowest confirmed pressure for a non-tropical system in the continental United States was set by a January 1913 Atlantic coast storm.
A destructive derecho event struck the states of Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio on July 11, 2011, and was the most damaging portion of a much larger derecho event known as The Cross Country Derecho of July 2011. It started on the morning of July 11, 2011, when a powerful long-lasting straight-line windstorm, known as a derecho, developed over central Iowa and carved a path of extensive damage across east central Iowa. The storms first took shape as a cluster of low-end severe storms over Southern Nebraska during the late afternoon of July 10. The system continued northeastward and entered western Iowa at 1:00 a.m, still only as a marginal line of severe storms. As the system passed through the Northern Des Moines metro area at 3:30 a.m., it interacted with an outflow boundary from the storms to the north and rapidly intensified as it accelerated eastward. Over the next hour and a half the storm plowed eastward through Story, Marshall, and Tama Counties, blasting the area with winds of up to 105 miles per hour (169 km/h). The storm continued to track eastward, plowing through eastern Iowa and the Southern Great Lakes region before dissipating in West Virginia in the mid-afternoon. Thousands of trees were downed in western Iowa alone, and numerous structures were either damaged or destroyed. The peak winds were estimated to be in the range of 130 miles per hour (210 km/h), equal to a Category 4 hurricane. One man was killed in Grand Rapids, Michigan due to a falling tree.
The June 2012 Mid-Atlantic and Midwest derecho was one of the deadliest and most destructive fast-moving severe thunderstorm complexes in North American history. The progressive derecho tracked across a large section of the Midwestern United States and across the central Appalachians into the mid-Atlantic states on the afternoon and evening of June 29, 2012, and into the early morning of June 30, 2012. It resulted in a total of 22 deaths, millions of power outages across the entire affected region, and a damage total of US$2.9 billion which exceeded that of all other derecho events aside from the August 2020 Midwest derecho. The storm prompted the issuance of four separate severe thunderstorm watches by the Storm Prediction Center. A second storm in the late afternoon caused another watch to be issued across Iowa and Illinois.
The May 2022 Canadian derecho was a high-impact derecho event that affected the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, Canada's most densely populated region, on May 21, 2022. Described by meteorologists as a historic derecho and one of the most impactful thunderstorms in Canadian history, winds up to 190 km/h (120 mph) as well as around four tornadoes caused widespread and extensive damage along a path that extended for 1,000 kilometres (620 mi).
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