severe microburst in Clarksville/columbia august 13th 2021

The afternoon of August 13th 2021 provided a very favorable environment for thunderstorms with significant damaging winds. Temps were in the mid-upper 90s to near 100 with dew points low-mid 70s leading to an extremely unstable airmass with 3,000-4,000 j/kg of CAPE. When combined with very steep lapse rates and high DCAPE, any storm that formed would likely produce damaging winds.  And that was certainly the case, with widespread wind damage being observed across the area as seen in the above image where each W represents a wind damage report. 

One storm in particular was especially intense, producing a destructive microburst in the area of Clarksville into Columbia. While winds gusts ranged from 50-60mph across most of Howard county, the core of this microburst produced winds of 80-90mph, knocking down dozens upon dozens of trees and many powerlines. There were countless branches down on many roads and power was out for more than 48 hours in some areas. I took the images below the next day along Ten Oaks Road and surrounding neighborhoods. The NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning in advance of this, warning of the likelihood that winds would exceed 70mph.

Just another reminder that it does NOT take a tornado to do major wind damage and to create life threatening conditions.