El Derecho, or, When Air Attacks
Yesterday I was treated to my first scary Minnesota weather episode, if you don't count the twenty below when I was here in January, which you probably should.
JUAN GABRIEL megauploadThe gist of it is that a massive blackish-green wall of doom stretching for miles in either direction advanced on my humble office. I went out and took a couple of pictures, and while I snapped away the air was completely calm, but moments after I went back inside it hit like a giant leafblower (us being the hapless leaves).
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A huge rush of debris rushed through our inner courtyard. Outside, a co-worker's Caddy trembled in fear of possible golf ball hail.
The hail didn't hit here, but elsewhere hail over an inch and a quarter in diameter was reported. The weather phenomena, known as a Derecho (means straight ahead in Spanish) is a straight-line of high winds and thunderstorms that advances quickly in a south-easterly direction. This is what radar looks like When Air Attacks:
Very scary, but the trees look really beautiful up against that scary sky. We have those trees here. The ends of them are soft as kittens in the spring. I believe they are fir trees?
Okay, I have to ask. Why the name "mackerel street?"