AMES, Iowa - An Iowa State University scientist says forecasting of derecho storms like the one that hit Iowa last month needs to improve.
Bill Gallus says the National Weather Service did well to give a 20 to 40 minute advance notice of the storm, which was otherwise poorly forecast.
The professor of geological and atmospheric sciences, and thinks one of the most important objectives moving forward will be figuring out how to give better notice that violent, straight-line winds are on the way.
Gallus also says it's hard to tell if derechos will become a trend because there are only a few of them across the country every year.
He calls the storm that brought straight line winds of up to 140 miles per hour an incredible event. Gallus says it's hard to know if climate change will contgribute to more derecho storms in the future.
Gallus says the main question to be answered: Why didn’t this storm show up in forecasts? He says he's now "working to use machine learning tools to improve the weather service’s database of storm information."