microburstn.
/ˈmʌɪkrə(ʊ)bəːst/, U.S. /ˈmaɪkroʊˌbərst/, /ˈmaɪkrəˌbərst/ 1. A brief burst or spate (of transmission, etc.).
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1967 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 58 2159 (caption) Simultaneous occurrence of magnetic pulsations and microburst of auroral X rays.
1970 Annales de Géophysique 26 71 Intense bursts with typical durations of ≃ 200 milliseconds (microbursts), whose energy spectrum is similar to that of the auroral X-ray background spectrum.
1983 S. Marshak & M. Culbreath Triangle i. 13 It sent off a micro-burst of high-speed code as it went down.
1992 K. S. Robinson Red Mars (1993) 488 They were too old for this..and nerves were frayed; they were fudging things, making little mistakes, falling into little microbursts of sleep.
2. Meteorology. A brief, relatively small downburst (downward gust of wind), having a horizontal spread of up to 10 kilometres.
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1981 Monthly Weather Rev. (U.S.) 109 1438 The nature of the windstorms was confirmed to be downbursts and microbursts characterized by multiple scales of airflows with their horizontal dimensions extending tens of meters to hundreds of kilometers.
1987 Science 16 Jan. 342/3 The phenomenon in meteorology called microbursts also exhibits rapid changes of state.
1995 New Scientist 29 Apr. 42/1 Windshear occurs most commonly in a phenomenon known as a microburst in which a column of air drops from the sky, fanning out in all directions as it hits the ground.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1967