Microburst

//ˈmaɪkroʊˌbɝst// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A strong downdraft, of less than 2.5 miles in diameter, that can cause damaging winds and powerful wind shear.

    "This resulted in the aircraft’s encounter at low altitude with a microburst-induced, severe wind shear from a rapidly developing thunderstorm located on the final approach course."

Example

More examples

"This resulted in the aircraft’s encounter at low altitude with a microburst-induced, severe wind shear from a rapidly developing thunderstorm located on the final approach course."

Etymology

From micro- + burst.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.