page_title: Derecho
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Derecho / Location
caption_attribution_description: Eesti: Väike-Maarja kirik ja Eesti kabel pärast augustitormi 2010.
context_page_description: A derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system and potentially rivaling hurricanic and tornadic forces.
  Derechos can cause hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, heavy rains, and flash floods. In many cases, convection-induced winds take on a bow echo form of squall line, often forming beneath an area of diverging upper tropospheric winds, and in a region of both rich low-level moisture and warm-air advection. Derechos move rapidly in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to an outflow boundary, except that the wind remains sustained for a greater period of time, and may exceed hurricane-force. A derecho-producing convective system may remain active for many hours and, occasionally, over multiple days.
  A warm-weather phenomenon, derechos occur mostly in summer, especially during June, July, and August in the Northern Hemisphere, within areas of moderately strong instability and moderately strong vertical wind shear. However, derechos may occur at any time of the year, and can occur as frequently at night as during the day.
context_section_description: Derechos in North America form predominantly from April to August, peaking in frequency from May into July. During this time of year, derechos are mostly found in the Midwestern United States and the U.S. Interior Highlands most commonly from Oklahoma and across the Ohio Valley. During mid-summer when a hot and muggy air mass covers the north-central U.S., they will often develop farther north into Manitoba or Northwestern Ontario, sometimes well north of the Canada–US border.
  North Dakota, Minnesota, and upper Michigan are also vulnerable to derecho storms when such conditions are in place. They often occur along stationary fronts on the northern periphery of where the most intense heat and humidity bubble exists. Late-year derechos are normally confined to Texas and the Deep South, although a late-summer derecho struck upper parts of the New York State area after midnight on 7 September 1998. Warm season derechos have greater instability than their cold season counterpart, while cool season derechos have greater shear than their warm season counterpart.
  Although these storms most commonly occur in North America, derechos can occur elsewhere in the world, with a few areas relatively frequently. Outside North America, they sometimes are called by different names. For example, in Bangladesh and adjacent portions of India, a type of storm known as a "Nor'wester" may be a progressive derecho. One such event occurred on 10 July 2002 in Germany: a serial derecho killed eight people and injured 39 near Berlin. Derechos occur in southeastern South America (particularly Argentina and southern Brazil) and South Africa as well, and on rarer occasions, close to or north of the 60th parallel in northern Canada. Primarily a mid-latitudes phenomenon, derechos do occur in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. On 8 August 2010, a derecho struck Estonia and tore off the tower of Väike-Maarja Church. Derechos are occasionally observed in China.
caption: Damage to the Väike-Maarja Church in Estonia after the derecho hit August 8, 2010
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