VIDEO: Incredibly Rare ‘Wet Microburst’ Caught on Camera

In the old days a lot of things that happened in the world had no explanation and people said that they existed because the gods have created them for some reason.

Now, we know that everything is a natural phenomenon and that it has a perfectly logical explanation no matter how weird or interesting it seems.

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.

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.

Microbursts occur through two processes: dry air entrainment and water loading. Dry air entrainment occurs when dry air mixes in with raindrops within a cloud.

The dry air causes the drops to evaporate, lowering the air temperature through evaporative cooling.

This area of cooler air begins to sink through the thunderstorm and gains speed as it falls.

If there is a steep lapse rate (large and steady change in temperatures) beneath the storm, the cool bubble of air will sink faster because the air around it will grow warmer (and less dense) closer to the ground.

This rapidly-descending column of air will eventually slam into the ground and spread out in all directions with winds of 60+ MPH, creating the microburst.

Another process that can help to create a microburst is called water loading, or the weight of the raindrops in the thunderstorm.

It goes without saying that water is heavy; when combined with dry air entrainment, the incredible weight of millions and millions of gallons of water falling out of a thunderstorm can help drag the cooler air to the surface, creating a microburst.

There are two types of microbursts—dry microbursts and wet microbursts—each native to certain parts of the United States.