WESTFIELD—As microbursts appear to happen more often in the area, cities like Westfield are creating plans to help offset whatever damage may occur from one.
But this leaves people with a rather obvious question—just what are microbursts?
Westfield News talked with WWLP meteorologist Brian Lapis to try and get a better understanding of the weather phenomenon.
“Imagine you fill up a bucket full of water and you pour the bucket of water out on a hard surface,” Lapis said. “That is essentially what a microburst is.”
Officially, Lapis said that the National Weather Service term for a microburst is “a localized column of sinking air less than or equal to 2.5 miles in diameter.”
A microburst is formed during thunderstorms Lapis said, with downward momentum being the key to their formation. Clouds have support systems in storms that help keep more water and ice inside of them.
However, as the support system starts to weaken the water load within the cloud comes out, going downward. This downward momentum is the opposite of how a tornado forms, which is through upward momentum.
“As that water comes out obviously it has some mass, and as water descends from the air it cools,” Lapis said. “This is evaporational cooling, and the cool air sinks.”
As this cool air descends, it continues to build momentum, and can come down toward the ground and outward at as high as 100 MPH.
These 100 MPH winds can cause significant damage, as was seen in the Eashampton microburst, and can be especially dangerous to aircraft. In fact, microbursts have been considered the cause for several fatal air accidents within the past century.
Lapis said that microbursts may be occurring more often now, which is why municipalities are now adding plans to help mitigate their damage, but it is uncertain.
“We are also noticing things more, we are seeing more stuff on radar, more people with cameras out there,” Lapis said. “But that is not to dismiss that as climate changes we could see more microbursts. As climate changes we have more capacity to hold water.
“That’s making kind of a big leap but that’s not out of the question.”
For now, statistics related to microburst’s overall incidence rate cannot be readily found. This is because microbursts are kept under the larger statistic of “wind,” and does not normally designate when a microburst was the event. Lapis also was unsure of an official incidence rate.
Further, the National Weather Service has no catalogue online of microbursts and when we attempted to reach them for comments, we received no reply.
