Weather experts are analyzing a wealth of data about Monday’s powerful storm that carved a destructive path across Iowa’s midsection, wiping out trees, power lines and crops.

Dennis Todey ,director of the U-S-D-A’s Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Todey says they had eyes on the storm early on, but no one realized how strong it would become, or how quickly it would strengthen.

Todey says the term derecho was actually coined by Dr. Gustavus Hinrichs at the University of Iowa in the late 1800s.” Hinrichs, who started the first state weather service, is also among the researchers credited with the discovery of the atom and the Periodic Table of Elements.