Path of EF2 tornado in Illinois on November 22, 2010. (NWS)
November is not normally the time of year for tornadoes, least of all in states in northern latitudes like Illinois and Wisconsin. That however did not stop a mini-outbreak yesterday as at least two tornadoes struck and as many as seven were possible.
Watch video of the twister below
Severe thunderstorms were spawned yesterday by a strong cold front moving across the upper Midwest. The twisters were the first in 26 years to strike the area in November – you have to go all the way back to November 9, 1984 to find the last one.
The National Weather Service has confirmed that the strongest of the tornadoes yesterday was an EF2 packing winds of 135mph. It covered a path of 16.4 miles and had a maximum width of 200 yards. The twister overturned a bus, caused significant damage to buildings and injured six people.
Below you can see a video of the twister as it passed near Loves Park, Illinois.
A Chicago Herald Examiner headline covering the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925. (Wikipedia) Follow the link below for images of the destruction.
News reports portray a dreary start to March 18, 1925 with heavy rain in the morning but nothing that would foretell the disaster that was to come. Before the day was over, parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana would be torn asunder and nearly 700 people would be dead.
Today marks the 85th anniversary of what we now call the Tri-State Tornado. The deadly twister was of the likes that had never been seen before – and hasn’t been seen since. That morning, the U.S. Weather Bureau’s forecast called for “rains and strong shifting winds.” Nothing that would indicate the horror that was to come.
The first reports of the tornado happened at 1:01pm near Ellington, Missouri. As it moved to the northeast the twister tore through the towns of Annapolis, Redford, Cornwall, Biehle, and Frohna. By the time it exited Missouri, 11 people were dead.
Illinois bore the brunt of the tornado as it continued on its deadly path. It crossed the Mississippi River and tore through Gorham, Johnston City, Murphysboro, De Soto, Hurst-Bush and a half dozen other Illinois towns. Entire towns were reduced to rubble, over a thousand people were injured and 613 people in the state were dead.
Far from over, the twister crossed into Indiana where the towns of Griffin, Owensville, and Princeton were hit. 71 people are thought to have died in the state.
The horror finally came to an end at 4:30pm, three and a half hours after it started. The tornado dissipated southwest of Petersburg, Indiana but not until after it had covered a path of at least 219 miles and left death and destruction the entire way. From southeastern Missouri, completely across southern Illinois and into southwestern Indiana, the tornado was the longest tracking twister ever recorded.
