Are derechos looming on the horizon?
Peoria, Ill. (WMBD) — There's been a lot of chatter on social media about increasing chances for Derechos in the next few weeks across portions of the Midwest. These posts are lacking a bit of context so I hope to provide some of that here.
A Derecho (deh-REY-cho) is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a rapidly moving band of showers or thunderstorms. For severe straight line wind events to be classified as derechos they need to produce continuous damaging wind gusts over 58 mph, with at least 5 well separated reports of 74 mph, over a minimum distance of 248 miles.
We're no stranger to derechos in Central Illinois as we are typically impacted by one Derecho a year. That said, not every Derecho is the same and some are more impactful than others. Here are some of the more memorable events in recent history…
The 'Corn-belt Derecho of 2020' was the costliest thunderstorm event in modern U.S. history after producing 11.5 Billion dollars worth of damage. That event produced a 140 mph wind gust in Cedar Rapids, IA and at least 26 tornadoes across Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. This particular event battered areas along I-80 more than areas along I-74.
More recently we had a derecho blast through Central Illinois on July 15th, 2024. Even though this derecho produced a measured wind gust of 105 mph near Speer, it was more known for the number of spin up tornadoes that occurred along the leading edge of the line. The storm produced at least 56 tornadoes across Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. 48 of those tornadoes occurred in Illinois which included a number of EF-1 Tornadoes moving through the Peoria Metro Area.
As of June 6th, 2025 there are no derecho events in the immediate forecast. What many social media pages are posting as forecasts are simply climatological data that's not labeled as such.
The month of June is peak severe weather season for the state of Illinois, and anytime storms are in the forecast, there's likely going to be some potential for severe weather. Most of those events won't be derechos. That said, 70% of all derechos happen between the months of May and August, so it wouldn't be all that surprising if we started to see more derecho events in the next few months, especially as we start to trend towards a more typical summer-like pattern.
So, is there a high likelihood a derecho will occur somewhere across the Midwest through the end of July? Yes, but there's no way to know when, where, or just how impactful one might be until we get within a few days of an event.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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