NICE AND BRIGHT TO BLACK AS NIGHT; THE JULY 16TH, 1980, DERECHO

[wxhstn74]

Step back in time on the 33rd anniversary of one of the most notable derechos ever to clobber Southeast Lower Michigan from Ann Arbor into Metro Detroit; The July 16th 1980 Derecho!

http://weatherhistor...night-july.html

 

[Stebo]

Step back in time on the 33rd anniversary of one of the most notable derechos ever to clobber Southeast Lower Michigan from Ann Arbor into Metro Detroit; The July 16th 1980 Derecho!

http://weatherhistor...night-july.html

This would have probably been an incredible line to see coming in at DTW. Certainly would have made for an interesting shift of observing.

[IWXwx]

This would have probably been an incredible line to see coming in at DTW. Certainly would have made for an interesting shift of observing.

 

Especially coming through at 8:30-9:00 AM. The line rolling in probably looked particularly eerie.

[Stebo]

Especially coming through at 8:30-9:00 AM. The line rolling in probably looked particularly eerie.

Yeah probably a deep green to black wall of wind and rain.

[nwohweather]

150 MPH wind out of line is unreal

[Hoosier]

The Fujita paper is a good read.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/papers/Fujita_1981.pdf

[IWXwx]

The Fujita paper is a good read.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/papers/Fujita_1981.pdf

 

Thanks. I read that a few years ago and I wanted to save a copy.

[michsnowfreak]

A repost of what I posted last year about this derecho

 

My mom has always been a weather follower. Nothing close to me mind you lol, but from the time she was a kid she would always stare out the window waiting for the first flakes of a snowfall (like mother like son!) and one thing i appreciate above ALL else is her ACCURACY and NON-EXAGGERATING accounts of weather events past. Whenever I was given, by an elder, the old "it snowed more when I was a kid....or....there was always snow on Christmas....or I remember that storm dropped 5 feet of snow" she always told me it was bull, as she remembered some Christmases had snow, some didnt, some winters were hard, some werent. Of course snow/winter is my #1, so thats where most of my questions and her stories come from. But NEVER is there a more unreal account as hers of the July 16, 1980 derecho, and we were talking about it today when I told her it was the anniversary.

She was leaving for work (Michigan Bell), and as she drove to work the sky got bad. Sickening and scary are two words she always uses to describe the sky. Well actually, whenever I bring up the color of the sky, the first thing she says is "I dont even want to call it sky" lol. "It was a dark, avacado green and it just seemed to hang there...had never seen anything like that in my life and have not seen one since". This green sky is what she always talked about, and clearly as read by Bills writeup, it was a trademark of this storm for many. Several years ago we had a hail-driven thunderstorm that started with an ominous green tinted sky, and I asked my mom if it was like that storm she always talked about from before I was born (didnt know the date at the time), and she said "not even CLOSE". The next thing my mom remembered was that it was SO still/calm and SO humid out. The stillness (mixed with the green sky) was so unreal it was like something out of an end-of-the world movie. Nothing was moving, not the tiniest hint of breeze, as this horrid green hung overhead. Then as she got to work, running to the door, it went from calm to ferocious wind and one of the newly planted trees in front of the door just uprooted itself. She was telling everyone its getting bad and at first, they wanted all the operators to keep working and close the blinds so they wouldnt look outside and be preoccupied by the storm, but quickly they had everyone go to the basement as the power went out. She remembers everyone was scared, some people were crying, and a lot of machines were beeping as the power went out. When the storm was over, they went back upstairs, opened the door, and it was disaster everywhere. The roof on the bowling alley across the street has just been picked up and blown off. The day turned into a sunny summer day and she wanted to drive around and check out the damage but it was just too bad that she went straight home. Her work was in the area winds were estimated at 150 mph. She also remembers they didnt know what to call it, no one ever said "tornado" but no one had a word for what the hell had just happened, and it was clearly NOT just another summer storm. Tops of trees were snapped off like toothpicks, and 32 years later, some of the old conifers in that area have evidence of non-pointed tops. She always has said "its from that storm in '80".

http://www.wundergro...atename=NA&MR=1

I looked up the hourly obs at DTW, and told her she was dead on about the wind, as the light winds of 5-7mph turned to "Calm" for the 2 hours before the storm hit. She was also dead on in saying the storm hit around 9am. As well as it being so humid (8am obs was temp 75, dew 71). Then at 9:05am DTW reported the rare 0.0mi visibility with thunderstorms, fog, and rain, and wind NNW 40mph gusting to 71mph (again wind was twice as bad were she was). Once the storm passed, damage was everywhere and it turned into a partly cloudy, seasonal summer day with a high of 84F. No one at the time really knew why or what had just happened.