Clean up is underway in many Massachusetts communities where an overnight storm brought down trees and powerlines, which knocked out power to tens of thousands.
The National Weather Service has confirmed a derecho event across the northeast on October 7th.
In southern New England we had extensive damage reported, power outages all over and a major disruption to online learning and working remotely. A line of powerful thunderstorms plowed through New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, leaving hundreds of damage reports.
A derecho is rare in New England, especially in the fall. A derecho is defined as an ongoing straight line wind damage event, that stretches at least 250 miles long and at least 60 miles wide. Wind gusts of 58 mph or greater and hail is also possible, and winds can actually get as high as 100 mph. In this case, we had gusts of 50 mph - 70 mph in many communities.
The last time we had a derecho in New England, was on May 15, 2018 in New York and Connecticut. Prior to that, July 15,1995 with damage across southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
