DERECHO slams Quad Cities area Friday morning

Andy McCray
·1 min read

It’s now confirmed – the winds and tornadoes that hit our area this morning were part of a larger derecho that crossed Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois from Thursday night into Friday morning.

A derecho is classified as a widespread, long-lived wind storm.

For a t’storm complex to reach derecho criteria it must be on the ground and cover at least 400 miles. Also, it needs to be 60 miles wide or wider AND have several wind reports of at least 75 mph.

All of these thresholds were met with the storm as it moved from Western Nebraska through Des Moines and then the Quad Cities Friday morning.

Here’s a map of some of the storm reports from the Storm Prediction Center:

Notice the storm reports cover an areas that’s at least 600 miles long, meaning there’s plenty of room to spare to meet the 400 mile criteria.

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