MICROBURST

Microburst

A microburst is a very localized column of sinking air, producing damaging divergent and straight-line winds at the surface that are similar to, but distinguishable from, tornadoes, which generally have convergent damage. There are two types of microbursts: wet microbursts and dry microbursts. They go through three stages in their life cycle: the downburst, outburst, and cushion stages. The scale and suddenness of a microburst makes it a great danger to aircraft due to the low-level wind shear caused by its gust front, with several fatal crashes having been attributed to the phenomenon over the past several decades.

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microburst

Noun

  1. A strong downdraft, of less than 2.5 miles in diameter, that can cause damaging winds.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: microburst
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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