Derecho? Derech-NO

By Sarah Henderson

Montgomery County, Maryland experiences the occasional flash flood, some storming, and above average snowfall every few years. Sometimes we even catch the tail end of a hurricane. In general, however, we can expect some, albeit minimal, property damage, but nothing more significant than that. To be fair, there is the occasional exception. One of which stands out among the rest: the North American Derecho of June 2012.

Map depicting the extent of the 2012 North American Derecho

A derecho is a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms. These storms can have wind speeds as strong as those found in hurricanes and tornadoes. The difference is that while hurricanes and tornadoes have circular wind patterns, the wind from a derecho moves in a straight line, which is why they are called derechos in the first place as derecho means “straight” in Spanish. They are formed through something called a downburst which is a type of wind created by sinking cold, dense air in the atmosphere. Downbursts lead to even more downbursts, making the storms even larger. So large, in fact, one of the criteria to classify a derecho is that they have to have damaging winds for at least 240 miles.

Derecho storm clouds

But back to 2012. So on this particular summer evening in June, I remember sitting on the living room floor of my mom’s house, waiting to leave to meet some family friends in Rockville, MD. I had a box of Animal Crackers in my hands as my mom was getting my baby sisters ready. Absentmindedly, I flipped on the news and switched to the local weather channel as I knew there were supposed to be some storms. At this point, the sky had turned an odd green color–like a week old bruise. The wind was starting to pick-up as well. 

The weather channel switched to a series of images from my county. They reported 60-70mph winds with gusts reaching over 80mph. They showed downed power lines, fallen branches on cars, a whole tree dividing a house in two on Danbury Court. My mother came down the stairs just in time to see that last image flash across the screen. She released a short burst of well-timed expletives. We were supposed to go to that house.

House with a downed tree on it on the news (not the house I was going to)

Obviously, we ended up staying home. Eventually, we even had to hunker down in the basement. At my dad’s house, a 60 foot pine tree fell in the yard, missing the house by mere feet with its top landing on the front stoop. My dad and older sister were stuck using the back door until the tree could be cleared away. One of my friends’ cars was even crushed by a tree. We were fortunate it wasn’t worse. Many people weren’t so lucky.

Car crushed by a fallen tree from the storm

The derecho ended up killing 22 people across the U.S and resulted in $2.9 billion in damage costs. 1,600,000 Maryland homes lost power, including my own. During the following week, water restrictions were also enacted in my county. By July 6, 2012, over 4,800 tons of storm debris had been collected in Montgomery County alone, but the full cleanup took months. This may have been a memorable experience, but it’s one I’d rather not see repeated.

References

“The Derecho of June 29, 2012.”  (2013, December 04). The National Weather Service. Retrieved from             https://www.weather.gov/lwx/20120629svrwx

“What Is a Derecho?” (2020, November 09). SciJinks. Retrieved from https://scijinks.gov/derechos/

Zielinski, S. (2012, July 02). “The DC Derecho of 2012” Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved from                         https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-dc-derecho-of-2012-135759/