Weather
Hurricane-Force Gusts Strike Central US in Wild Weather Event
- Thunderstorms, derecho mark Thursday’s tree-toppling outbreak
- One of the year’s ‘higher impact’ instances of severe weather
This article is for subscribers only.
Some of the wildest weather of this year ripped across the US Midwest and Great Plains on Thursday, unleashing tree-toppling, hurricane-force wind gusts and crashing hail.
The highest wind report came from South Dakota, where a gust reached 107 miles (172 kilometers) per hour, said Andrew Orrison, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center. At least 55 reports of gusts of 75 mph or more were recorded, the second most since at least 2004. Meteorologists also confirmed the system touched off a derecho -- a wave of rapidly moving thunderstorms and winds that can cause massive damage.