(Sioux Falls, S.D.)– You can add the word “gustnado” to your weather vocabulary. Jeff Chapman of the National Weather Service Office in Sioux Falls says it was a gustnado that cause all the damage Wednesday in portions of Lyon and Osceola counties…
“We were dealing with some thunderstorms that had some very strong outflow winds, very strong gust front, a lot of dust being pulled up with that. The features that were captured on a few of those videos I’ve seen are actually what we call a gustnado, which is a localized spin up along the outflow of the thunderstorm. It differs from a tornado in that it isn’t connected to the parent storm as a tornado is. It’s a de-stabilization or a spin up along that outflow wind. Typically, they don’t cause damage but in this case there was a couple of smaller buildings that were hit by one apparently according to one video.”
Considerable tree damage occurred in some areas along with some power lines that got knocked down. There were no reports of injuries.
(Community First Broadcasting station KIWA in Sheldon contributed to this story)
