Blows me away!

SKY WATCH FRIDAY time! Please visit Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Louise and Fishing Guy, the team for SKY WATCH FRIDAY (click the word to link and participate!) Thanks to Dot and Tom, who were instrumental in the success of this blogging event. You should definitely come fly with us! In honor of yesterday's outrageous outflow wind event, I thought I would present my favorite outflow wind event.This is the shelf cloud in South Dakota, back in June 2007, that carried with it wind ranging from 60-70mph, stirring up a ferocious sand storm. It was spectacular, beyond words, and it really gave me some tremendous hurricane perspective. The specific storm front, was strong enough to blow over a tractor trailer traveling on the interstate. Here are some shots that immediately followed the above.

This shot is what I saw when I turn about 45° to my left. It truly was evil looking!:This was Diane filming Mel capturing video (we were shooting for a television show about storm chasing) of the approaching storm and the amazing shelf cloud, just before the outflow winds (straight-line winds) arrived:This shot was the sand just about to overtake us:Here, we have been overtaken by a wall of sand, visibility was down to 0!:It was one of my most memorable moments out there, especially since I didn't get to the tornado that occurred that day about 25 miles or so from where we were.
Yesterday's main weather story was the powerful and deadly wind field that was generated by the squalled out line of storms that resulted after Tuesday's tornadic event. Where my straight line wind event was generated by one very powerful storm segment, the squall line event yesterday produced a wall of damaging wind, hundreds of miles wide, which inspired over 300 wind damage reports. All the blue dots in the linked graphic above represent wind damage reports yesterday. Sadly, one fatality was reported in Davy, WV after the gym roof at Twin Branch Christian Academy collapsed. Another person near Monterey, TN, was injured when he was pinned in a car by a tree. It looks like a disaster area where this wind devastated much of the region, knocking out power to tens of thousands, including some of those just recovering from the ice storm power outage. This report caught my attention:

30-50 TREES DOWN OFF HIGHWAY 62 LITTLE HURRICANE TRAIL.

30-50 trees... Little Hurricane Trail...? In Tennessee...? Yes, folks, tornadoes can be horribly destructive, but straight-line winds, such as what we saw yesterday, can cause more wide-scale damage and devastation. Where tornadic damage is generally limited to the specific swath of the tornado, a straight-line wind event can wreak havoc across hundreds of miles as we saw yesterday.

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop