The Weather Guys

Recent episodes of severe weather both here in southern Wisconsin and around the country have included reference to “derechos.” Forecasters worried a storm that passed through Wisconsin on June 11-12 could become a derecho, although it never became that severe.

This term, which is a Spanish word for straight, refers to a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a rapidly moving band of thunderstorms. Though a derecho can produce destruction similar to what is associated with tornadoes, the damage is produced by straight-line winds, not rotary winds.

Despite the fact that “derecho” seems to be a new word, it was introduced by Gustavus Hinrichs in 1888 in his description of a storm that crossed Iowa on July 31, 1877. Hinrichs was convinced not all damaging convective storms in the Great Plains were tornadoes, and he set out to prove it. Lt. John Finley, of the Army Signal Corps (which later became the National Weather Service), was a leading tornado expert at the time and was not convinced of Hinrichs’ theory.

Hinrichs proved to be right: These straight-line wind storms were early summer phenomena (late May, June and July), and could affect huge areas in a relatively short time.

He chose a Spanish word to name them, hoping this choice would provide a complementary term to “tornado.”

Around 1890, the U.S. Weather Bureau instituted a ban on use of the word “tornado” on the grounds that it incited panic within the populace. This ban was not removed until the early 1940s when “tornado” reappeared in Weather Bureau warnings and forecasts.

“Derecho” seems to have disappeared during that period and was resurrected in 1987.

Last year, on June 29, a major derecho event roared east from Chicago to Washington, D.C., leaving 5 million people without power and substantially raising the profile of derechos in the United States.

Yes, we can see satellites in particular orbits as they pass overhead at night. Viewing is best away from city lights and in cloud-free skies. The satellite will look like a star steadily moving across the sky for a few minutes.

If the lights are blinking, you probably are seeing a plane, not a satellite.

Satellites do not have their own lights that make them visible. What you will see is sunlight being reflected off the satellite, often off the large solar arrays that provide power to the satellites.

These satellites are very high above Earth, about 200 to 300 miles so, while you are in the night darkness, the satellite can still be illuminated by the sun.

Eventually the satellite will fly into the Earth’s shadow and then suddenly disappear from view.

The International Space Station (ISS) can be very bright.

It orbits Earth at an altitude of about 215 miles traveling at a speed of 17,200 mph.

It is a large object with large, highly reflective solar panels making it the brightest of human objects orbiting Earth. It can be as bright as Venus.

You can find out when the ISS is flying over you by visiting the website go.madison.com/space-station and entering your state and city, or selecting one of the nearby cities from a list.

Weather satellites that track clouds and whose images are shown in animations on many websites are orbiting 22,000 miles above us and appear fixed over the equator.

You will not be able to see those moving across the sky.

We have not been subjected to extreme heat this summer. In fact, through June 18, we are about 0.2 degrees below normal for the month. That appears to be about to change as a massive ridge of high pressure will be in place over the central United States by the time you read this.

We suspect that will mean our first few days of temperatures over 90 degrees during this week. Interestingly, the circumstances leading to this rather usual onset of summertime heat may be pretty unusual.

It appears that an incredible heat wave in Alaska last week (June 16-19) may have set the stage for our coming warm week. The towns of McGrath and Valdez, Alaska, were both over 90 degrees last week (20 and 17 degrees above normal, respectively). There were numerous other reports of temperatures over 90 in Alaska last week — the highest being 96 near Denali National Park.

Valdez had an overnight low of only 69 on June 17.

All of this unusually warm Alaska weather was associated with an incredibly unusual ridge of high pressure at about three miles above the ground. Such a feature keeps the skies clear and, coupled with the very long days in central Alaska near the summer solstice and flow down the sides of the high mountains, the temperatures were able to soar. The evolution of the Alaskan ridge is the main connection between last week’s heat in Alaska and our heat this week.