This was the lead story last weekend. A tornado outbreak strikes the midwest and Great Lakes region. 81 reports of tornadoes in 6 states damaging dozens of town and leveling several. Also hundreds of reports of severe wind and hail we recieved causing sporadic damage and power outages over hundreds of miles. In Illinois there were 2 F4 tornadoes, the first time such large tornadoes had struck the state in November since records have been kept.
As early as the previous Wednesday and Thursday, there was talk of a severe weather event coming together in that region. The storm prediction center even put out a graphic 4 days in advance for severe potential. As we got into Friday and Saturday, the potential for severe weather became more and more sure, and also more and more ominous. All the ingredients seemed to be coming together for a major tornado outbreak. It became so sure by Saturday that a High risk area was posted, which is a rare event. On Sunday morning they expanded the risk areas a bit. Anybody who was into weather knew... this was a seriously dangerous situation about to unfold.
All the ingredients were there, a strong low pressure system creating lots of wind, moisture flowing in from the south, a strong jet stream flying overhead from the west creating crosswinds at different heights in the air. Along with the moisture you had enough warmth at the surface and cold air aloft. The cold front coming off the low was bowed a bit forward rather than dragging behind with a sharp contrast in temperatures and wind direction. It wasn't a matter of if, but when would they begin to fire.
By 9am the storms had already begun to fire. There was a line in N IL near Rockford, and SW of Peoria some more storms had just formed. There were a couple of tornado warnings on the north storms for spotted funnel clouds, but they were soon robbed of energy by the southern storms as they developed. At 11:55am the first confirmed tornado was spotted by Pekin IL, just south of Peoria. It did some damage and moved on to East Peoria by 12:00pm and damaged up to 80 homes there. The storm intensified more before it moved into Washington by 12:05, a full blown F4 tornado that you saw at the open of the blog. As time moved on, more storms developed and more tornadoes formed and towns hit. It was truly a scary afternoon.
I was already on the road by the time the first torndao reports started coming in. The first tornado was on the ground for 46 miles and lasted 41 minutes (notice the speed? over 60mph). It lifted at about 12:36 or shortly thereafter. Very shortly after that I was arriving at Morris on the NE corner of the storm. All kinds of debris was raining down from the sky. Mostly it was construction material; insulation, shingles, little bits of wood. I knew something bad had happened, and that also I was not in a good location. It seemed to take forever to get out of there as there was traffic lights to work through and I got them all red and thinking, there is a tornado coming at me and I am stuck at this light.
I proceeded east to stay ahead of the storm, also hoping I could work into a good location. Then the storm began dropping new tornadoes. Braidwood, Coal City, Wilmington, Manhattan, then Frankfort. Each time the reports were moving NE and I was on a direct collision course with the tornado. I knew I was in the slot, with rains to my north and ominous steep rising clouds to my SW. The tornado I knew was just behind the feature to my SW, being abscured by rain from my view. The whole time I heard the sound of tornado sirens blaring into the afternoon sky. I just couldn't make any progress against this fast moving storm. I finally had to bail as traffic had become too slow to outrun the storm and I did not want to be stuck in my car if it hit. Good thing too. The map I am looking at shows the last report only 2 km to my south. How many miles is a km? That was at 2pm in Frankfort.
Upon my return home, I stopped back and checked out some of the debris that had fallen. Mostly it was construction material. I found a fragment of a hand written note and a piece of a bill from 1991. About 40 miles from Washington I found a piece of wall board about 3ft square. Hard to imagine that frisbeeing for 40 miles, but there it was. There was also a lot of sporadic damage from non tornadic winds; trees down, power poles snapped, garbage cans and such strewn about. It was also on my way home I began to hear the reports of what I already had known from the falling debris. Towns had been hit and severely damaged by tornadoes.
One of the oddities of the tornadoes that day was there seemingly targeting places named Washington. There was the town of Washington IL that was severely damaged by an F4, and further downstate another F4 struck Washington county. AND, the town of Washington Indiana was hit by a tornado also.
My prayers go out to those affected, and calls go out again for assistance to anyone within my reach. If you give cash to the Red Cross, you can designate it to be for tornado relief. I have to hand it to the communities though. They have very quickly sprung into action with their emergency plans they had in place and the relief efforts so far have been very organized and quick. Kudos to the communities, and the surrounding communities and businesses who have all pitched in to help. I hope it has been like that in all the communities hit Sunday. There were many.
