Редкое явление «тепловой взрыв» вызвало резкий скачок температуры в Небраске

Heat burst explainer: how a storm can cause surface temps to rapidly warm up OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - You’ve likely heard of a heat index or a heat dome—but have you ever heard of a heat burst? A few communities experienced this rare weather phenomenon firsthand on Wednesday morning. A heat burst is defined as a rapid increase in surface temperatures, gusty winds, and decrease in surface dewpoints associated with a weakening thunderstorm. These typically occur during the nighttime hours. There are two essential atmospheric ingredients for a heat blast to occur! The first is a dissipating thunderstorm and the midlevel atmospheric environment (~6,000 ft+) must be hot and dry. To describe how a heat burst forms, let’s start with the anatomy of a thunderstorm! First, warm humid air rises and feeds a thunderstorm also known as an updraft. Cool dry air sinks behind the thunderstorm which is called a downdraft. This happens during the day! When the sun sets, the updraft ends eliminating the fuel for the storm. As the storm weakens, the downdraft speeds increase. The rain falling within the storm eventually evaporates since its falling in cool dry air. Once the rain ends, the downdraft pushes down the hot dry air from the midlevel of the atmosphere. As the air reaches the surface, the air gets compressed causing the surface temperatures to increase rapidly. This occurred in a few communities, one of them being Plattsmouth. At 7 AM Wednesday morning, the surface temperature was recorded at 73°. At 8:35 AM, the temperature increased to 87° then fell back to 78° by 10:15 AM. Winds were gusty reaching between 20-30 mph! One of the more intense examples was back in 2011 in Wichita, Kansas where the temperature went from 85° to 102° in 20 minutes! These heat bursts can cause strong winds reaching 70-80 mph causing roofs to be ripped off, damage trees, and relocate lawn furniture. Heat bursts typically occur during late spring into summer seasons. They’re common in New Mexico. Copyright 2026 WOWT. All rights reserved.