So, we had quite a night and early morning across Michiana. Severe weather rolled through the area and it produced a number of watches and warnings. This is the first, serious bout of severe weather that has hit the area so far this season.

These storms produced some pretty strong winds and heavy downpours. Across the area, county authorities reported downed trees, tree limbs and some areas had downed powerlines. We also had reports of thousands of people losing power.

But the one thing I want to touch on is some of the damage that happened. Most of the damage was downed trees. We did have some people call the station wanting to know if there was a tornado. As I am writing this, there was no indications that a tornado did any damage across the area. And it’s probably safe to say no tornadoes happened during this round of storms. What we likely had was straight line winds.

Straight line winds are winds from a thunderstorm that meet or exceed 58 miles per hour. These winds originate from the thunderstorm in an area known as the downdraft. The downdraft of a thunderstorm is the part of the storm where the rain falls. I have attached a picture to illustrate. The blue arrows are the downdraft.

Straightline winds can be as powerful as a tornado, but they are distinguished by the damage. It’s pretty common for people to confuse to two. Tornado damage is usually scattered and has no pattern. Straight lines winds will push the damage in the direction it’s blowing…hence the name. Most of the time, damage from thunderstorm winds will be straight line winds. Below is an exmaple.

So if you had any damage from this weather, send some pictures my way, I would love to see them. You can email me at kgarcia@fox28.com. If I do get any, I will try to post them here on the blog.

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