A chubasco is a violent

squall A squall is a sudden, sharp increase in wind speed lasting minutes, as opposed to a wind gust, which lasts for only seconds. They are usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow. Squalls refer to the ...

with thunder and lightning, encountered during the rainy season along the Pacific coast of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. The word chubasco has its origins in the Portuguese word '' chuva'' which means rain. The

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

storms that regularly pass over the southwestern United States, including the southern regions of Arizona and New Mexico, are sometimes referred to as chubascos.''Mohave Daily Miner'', Sep 2, 1984.https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=943&dat=19840902&id=EIALAAAAIBAJ&sjid=S1MDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3278,11733 In the northern parts of Mexico, especially the northeast and north central, the word chubasco is used especially for suddenly occurring localised storms that produce very strong winds, sometimes as much as 90 miles per hour, and intense rains of as much as 5-6 inches in less than an hour.

Straight-line winds In meteorology, a downburst is a strong downward and outward gushing wind system that emanates from a point source above and blows radially, that is, in straight lines in all directions from the area of impact at surface level. Capable of pro ...

can topple windmills and break large limbs of large, sometimes ancient trees. The phenomenon normally occurs during the hottest days of the year (May through October).

References

{{climate-stub Climate of Mexico Weather events in North America