Rare ‘Wet Microburst’ Caught on Camera
When people looked at the sky, they couldn’t understand what was happening.
Microbursts are major wind events and they are incredibly rare, so getting one on camera can be considered pretty lucky.
Although, you’d probably want to stay as far as possible from something like this.
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According to thevane.gawker.com, a major wind event known as a “microburst” leveled thousands of trees in Easthampton, Massachusetts this morning.
Microbursts can create more damage than a weak tornado, and they’re responsible for many lethal airplane crashes. What is a microburst and how do they form?
Microbursts, also called “downbursts,” are a sudden downward burst of wind from the base of a thunderstorm.
The air can rush towards the ground at speeds of 60 MPH before impacting the surface and spreading out in all directions.
Winds at the surface can exceed 100 MPH in the strongest microbursts, often causing extensive tree and building damage.
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As the name suggests, microbursts tend to affect a small area, no larger than a few square miles in most cases.
The intense damage these wind events leave behind can cause residents to think they had a tornado.
While weak tornadoes and microbursts can produce similar amounts of damage, there is a marked swirl in tornado debris on the ground when viewed from above, while microbursts produce damage in a starburst pattern, with straight-line winds radiating away from the point of impact.
Thunderstorms have two main components: an updraft and a downdraft.
The updraft feeds warm, moist air into the storm, while the downdraft exhausts rain-cooled air with precipitation out of its base.
It’s important to note that downdrafts and downbursts (microbursts) are two different things.
General, run-of-the-mill downdrafts occur over a much wider area and their winds usually don’t reach severe levels.
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