Heat Bursts: Another Fortean Weather Phenomenon Explained?

[littleblackduck]

Heat Bursts Occur Across South-Central Nebraska Early Tuesday Morning, June 20th.

Heat bursts are caused by decaying thunderstorms and only develop in an extremely unique environment. The rare setup for a heat burst is dry air directly beneath a weakening elevated thunderstorm. When a thunderstorm is weakening air within the thunderstorm begins to sink. If this sinking air is very dry and high enough it will begin to accelerate toward the ground since it is more dense. Any remaining precipitation will fall through this dry air and quickly evaporate. As the air continues downward, it warms rapidly due to compression.

A heat burst is noted by a rapid increase in temperature, a drop in the dew point temperature and an increase in winds. Here are some readings that occurred this morning.

Read more details:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_ ... 1&source=0

This reminds me of some freak weather in the writings of Charles Fort.

Drat those scientists! They keep catching up to Fort. Good thing they keep creating new Forteana even faster than they solve the old mysteries!

But I fear, someday some one will read Fort and say "So what?"

Well, we'll (probably) always have teleportation unless some scientist actually catchs a frog on film in the act of being transported from the South American jungles to a Welsh village without passing over the Atlantic.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I recall reading of a heat burst in early 20th Century New Hampshire, in usually-cool New England, where the temperature suddenly jumped to 142 degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately the temperature returned to normal within about five minues.

In regards to modern meteorology "catching up" to Fort, it does so only AFTER denying Fort's facts for many decades, and then explains them with an ad hoc theory which may or may not be correct.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I recall reading of a heat burst in early 20th Century New Hampshire, in usually-cool New England, where the temperature suddenly jumped to 142 degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately the temperature returned to normal within about five minues. ...

Recorded temperatures during heat bursts have reached well above 40 °C (104 °F), sometimes rising by 10 °C (18 °F) or more within only a few minutes. More extreme events have also been documented, where temperatures have been reported to exceed 50 °C (122 °F). However, such extreme events have never been officially verified. Heat bursts are also characterized by extremely dry air and are sometimes associated with very strong, even damaging, winds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_burst

(A listing of documented cases with measured temperature effects can be found in the Wikipedia article.)