People here are in a panic. We already had 2/3 tornadoes on Monday and now this for tomorrow during the workday? Anyone else hearing news on it?
The National Weather Service has issued a Flash Flood Watch for all of central and southern Maryland starting at midnight tonight and extending through Thursday evening, in advance of a series to thunderstorms that will move through the area starting late tonight, and continuing through tomorrow.
Some meteorologists are warning that a gigantic line of powerful thunderstorms is likely to threaten one in five Americans.
But there is by no means universal agreement on a derecho.
The storm system packing tree-toppling winds is forecast to rumble from Iowa to Maryland.
The continuous line of storms might even spawn an unusual weather event called a derecho.
However, there is hardly agreement about the "derecho" angle. In fact, Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity of AccuWeather, Inc., tells WBAL News that it's not appropriate to use that terminology in this case.
The storms that will likely affect Maryland, Margusity said, could be similar to the ones that spawned tornadoes earlier this week. In fact, he said, the storms due to arrive tomorrow afternoon will probably be even stronger.
WBAL Meteorologist Tony Pann agrees that a "derecho" is unlikely.
A historic derecho last year killed 13 people and knocked out power to 4 million residents. Much of the damage and power problems were in Marlyand.
Bill Bunting, operations chief at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center, says Wednesday's storms are likely to produce tornadoes, dangerous lightning and large hail.
Yeah, that was supposed to hit here at about 10:00 a.m. this morning. It is still quite sunny and nice here. We will see if anything actually comes of it.
Fuck that, I'm sending those hellions up to the roof to fix it. I don't care if the derecho blows them away - I need water to stop coming out of my light switch!
I am freaking out. We were out 8 days last year. It was horrible. I'm hoping that with all the trimming, Sandy prep, and now we have an idea of what the heck a derecho means, we'll get nothing. let's hope. Derecho is a bad bad word in my house...
Well that seems more "reasonable." my facebook is blowing with people being all OMG DONT LEAVE YOUR HOUSE!
If they circle my house again on the radar though I am hightailing it out of there.
facebook is making me feel like I should arrange to work from home and hang out in the basement with the baby and animals instead of sending her to DC and heading to work as usual.
this is crazytalk, right?
I am canceling the field work I was supposed to do tomorrow though.
I think it's crazy talk wawa. I am anticipating some bad/severe weather, but I'm hoping it's not like close-down-the-bay-bridge overnight kind of weather??
Post by RoxMonster on Jun 12, 2013 14:47:53 GMT -5
I read that article this morning too. Here in IL we're in the purple range on the map (the worst one) which means great risk of severe weather. Right now it is sunny out, but I think we're getting hit tonight?
I'm unsure because the Weather Channel app on my phone says 100% chance of storms at 4:00, but their website says 0% chance until about 8 PM. So which is it, Weather Channel?
ETA: We're supposed to get hit today instead of tomorrow.
My co-worker just mentioned the derecho to me this morning. I knew it was supposed to rain, but I guess I didn't realize how severe the storm was supposed to be. I have meetings all afternoon tomorrow, so I hope it's not too terrible while I am driving everywhere!
I thought derechos were something you couldn't really predict?
I feel like last year's came on REALLY suddenly. That thing was insane - I have seen a lot of thunderstorms but I have never seen anything like that before.
I listen to footsforecsast. They are usually right
and Justin Berk. If they are freaking out/being somewhat giddy about severe weather, I listen to them.
I think the problem with last year was that it was 10pm and nothing like this had ever happened before here in our lives (so we had nothing to relate to other than "severe thunderstorm" or "hurricane") and BGE is suck-tastic. Now we know and it's a water/batteries/get gas for the generator kind of event (we even purchased a generator because of last year). This to me is something to freak out more about than a snowstorm/blizzard. I hate being hot.
We're supposed to get the storms tonight. We haven't really had anything bad yet this year so i need to get down to the basement and make sure our supplies are good.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jun 12, 2013 15:08:40 GMT -5
I still don't really understand the concept of a derecho. Yes, I read about it on Wiki but I still don't get it.
All I know is, derecho or not, I fucking hate wearing my rainboots now because my legs have gotten fatter and so my rainboots are practically cutting off my circulation. But I don't think I can get away with wearing my flip-flops for this much rain.
Oh good. I haven't lived here long (was here for Sandy but not last June's derecho) so I'm trying not to freak out. It won't be that bad right? I'm just concerned about H getting stick at work in DC if they stop running metro or worse, if he gets stuck on metro.
Goddammit, dh never got a generator b/c I think he was planning on getting a whole house generator & we needed to wait for the ground to thaw so we can find a place to dig out by the house to install one. Now I'm wondering why we have 't just gotten a small one to get by. Everything turns into a project that takes forever to get finished. We can't lose power like we did last year... I just can't live like that!!! *whine* also we had a play date & a moms night planned tomorrow. This storm better not get in the way of wine, cheese & bitching about our husbands (kidding!).
On the upside, I finally ordered Dd a pair of rainboots & a little umbrella... It should be here by Friday. Hahaha
I still don't really understand the concept of a derecho. Yes, I read about it on Wiki but I still don't get it.
All I know is, derecho or not, I fucking hate wearing my rainboots now because my legs have gotten fatter and so my rainboots are practically cutting off my circulation. But I don't think I can get away with wearing my flip-flops for this much rain.
During last June's big derecho, someone here described it as tornado-force winds, but in a straight line instead of a funnel. So it's like a wall of tornado. Weather.com describes it as a hurricane making landfall, but not gradually. Like BAM hurricane-force winds.
Post by debatethis on Jun 12, 2013 16:02:42 GMT -5
Chicago's getting nailed with it in about 20 minutes, and it's already hitting my house in the north suburbs. The last time we got a derecho, we came home from work to find our giant grill had been tossed ~20 feet out into the middle of our yard and our entire 6' privacy fence had blown down. Adding insult to (house)injury was the 90+ degree weather and no power for 6 days.
I still don't really understand the concept of a derecho. Yes, I read about it on Wiki but I still don't get it.
All I know is, derecho or not, I fucking hate wearing my rainboots now because my legs have gotten fatter and so my rainboots are practically cutting off my circulation. But I don't think I can get away with wearing my flip-flops for this much rain.
Last year's derecho was crazy. I mean CRAZY. It was totally calm, and I was in bed, but I kept hearing this noise like thunder. I thought, that's weird, it's can't be thunder. So I looked at the weather on my phone and it was just this LINE of red.
Actually it looked like this:
So I went downstairs to tell H and as soon as we went over to the window, the wind started blowing like crazy, out of nowhere. Huge gusts. Then it started raining. I said, "We'd better get the flashlights out" and literally one minute later, the power went out.
We sat in the front room of the house on the sofa looking out the window and watching the storm. It was the most bizarre storm I have ever experienced. The wind was incredible, and the sound of thunder was just like a long, continuous sound. It wasn't like THUNDERCLAP........silence.........THUNDERCLAP..... it was just a long, constant rumble. And the lighting was the same - it looked like a light show. THere was a constant faint light in the sky and one lightning strike after another, almost instantly. The rain was going sideways, the wind was so strong. It was just incredible. Crap from way down the street was being blown across our yard and it just kept going.
And of course, our power was out for days and the heat was unbearable - it got up to 88 degrees inside the house and that was on the main level. We couldn't even go upstairs, it was so hot. Which was super fun with a 3 year old and a four month old.
It also hit the day before our yard sale, which we thought was going to be awful, but it turned out great. Apparently since the power was out, people had nothing better to do than to come to our garage sale so we ended up selling nearly everything.